Yorke, Edward and successors, Cambridge, cm, u and auctioneers (1748–1840). Edward Yorke ‘lately apprenticed to Thomas Graves, Alderman, Burgess and Joiner’ was made free of the Corporation of Cambridge on 17 January 1755. He appears to have finished his apprenticeship some years before this as he is recorded on 5 January 1753 as paying half a years rates on premises in Trumpington St (next door to William Roper, another cm and u). The firm's bill head dated 1848 also announced ‘Established 1748’. When Roper retired from business in 1773, Yorke took over his shop and paid the parish rates on both properties up to 1787, when he rebuilt Ropers old premises (what is now 14 King's Parade). Advertised as auctioneer in Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 8 December 1764, 16 August and 11 October 1766 and 31 October 1767.

Yorke's recorded apps are: John Hazzard, 28 May 1765 for £31 10s, Thomas Burgoyne, 24 April 1776 for £42, James Tall, 5 January 1781 for £10, Thomas Chandler, 26 March 1796 for 10s, and Stephen Rawlinson, 26 March 1796 for £21. The last two are listed in the names of Edward Yorke and his son Thomas. Thomas, b. 1761 and bapt. in St Edward's parish, 28 October, was app. to his father ‘for natural love’ on 24 August 1778 and made free on 29 September 1785. His death aged 53 was reported in Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 14 March 1814. Edward Yorke announced in Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 2 April 1799 that he was resigning the business to his son Thomas. The death of Edward Yorke aged 77 was announced on 2 July 1803.

Payments to the Yorkes are recorded in the account books of the Cotton family of Madingley Hall, Cambridge between 1800–01. The Cambridge Chronicle and Journal reported on 14 (and/or 18) March 1814 the death of Thomas Yorke; this was followed in the next issue with an announcement by ‘B. N. [Bridget Nash] Yorke widow of Thomas Yorke’ that ‘having engaged proper assistants, till she receive the aid of the Son who is prepairing himself for the purpose’ she would carry on the business. The son, Samuel Yorke, announced on 20 March 1818 that he had ‘taken the business carried on by his late mother’, and he traded at King's Parade (previously Trumpington St), 1832–41. His apprenticeship had been in Norwich, then the main furniture making town in East Anglia, as in an advertisement of 21 October 1831 announcing that he had engaged one of Elliot Smith's best paper hangers, he states ‘that he is enabled to Furnish Houses and Rooms with dispatch and taste combined with economy, having had considerable experience during his seven years servitude in the Upholstery connected with the Cabinet Business in one of the first houses in Norwich, besides the general knowledge he has since gained from many of the first-rate Houses in London’. Samuel Yorke was admitted freeman on 7 October 1818 for a fee of £10 10s.

All the directories and poll bks list the Yorkes in the shop in Trumpington St later to be called King's Parade but from c. 1843 the business moved to 6 Benett St. This is the address on a bill head dated 1848 in the names of ‘C. & T. Yorke, Auctioneers, Upholderers, Appriasers, Cabinet Makers, Undertakers, House Agents’ and receipted by Samuel Yorke for monies ‘Received for Sons’. The bill head also includes an illustration of ‘Yorke's Registered Revolving Easy Chair’. The last entry to the firm is in Slater's directory of 1850. [Cambs. RO, Cambridge Corp. day bks and app. lists; rate bk of St Edward's parish; poll bks; City of Cambridge, Royal Commission on Historial Monuments 1959; Cambs. RO, account book of the Cotton family, 588/A45; bill head, Cambridgeshire Coll., City Lib; Furn. Hist., 1978. R.W.