Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet
Sir George Yonge, 5th Baronet, KCB, PC, FRS, of Escot House in the parish of Talaton in Devon, England, was a British Secretary at War. He succeeded to his father's baronetcy in 1755, which became extinct when he died without children. He is remembered by, among other things, the name of Yonge Street, a principal road in what is now Toronto, Canada, so named in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe.
Portrait by Edmund Scott, 1790.
Escot House in 1794
Yonge Street, Toronto
The Secretary at War was a political position in the English and later British government, with some responsibility over the administration and organization of the Army, but not over military policy. The Secretary at War ran the War Office. After 1794 it was occasionally a Cabinet-level position, although it was considered of subordinate rank to the Secretaries of State. The position was combined with that of Secretary of State for War in 1854 and abolished in 1863.
The Hon. Henry Pelham, who served as Secretary at War between 1724 and 1730