Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, (1 December 1690 – 6 March 1764) was an English lawyer and politician who served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. He was a close confidant of the Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister between 1754 and 1756 and 1757 until 1762.
A son of Philip Yorke, an attorney, he was born at Dover. Through his mother, Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Richard Gibbon of Rolvenden, Kent, he was connected with the family of Edward Gibbon the historian. He was educated at a school in Bethnal Green run by Samuel Morland, a nonconformist.
At age 16, Yorke entered the attorney's office of Charles Salkeld in Holborn, London. He was entered at the Middle Temple in November 1708, and perhaps recommended by his employer to Lord Chief Justice Parker as law tutor to his sons.
In 1715, Yorke was called to the bar, where his progress was, according to Lord Campbell, more rapid than that of any other debutant in the annals of the profession, his advancement being greatly furthered by the patronage of Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, who became Lord Chancellor in 1718, when Yorke transferred his practice from the King's Bench to the Court of Chancery, though he continued to go on the Western Circuit. In the following year he established his reputation as an equity lawyer in a case in which Robert Walpole's family was interested, by an argument displaying profound learning and research concerning the jurisdiction of the chancellor, on lines which he afterwards more fully developed in a celebrated letter to Lord Kames on the distinction between law and equity.
Through the Earl of Macclesfield's influence with the Duke of Newcastle Yorke entered parliament in 1719 as member for Lewes, and was appointed solicitor-general, with a knighthood, in 1720, although he was then a barrister of only four years standing.
Although in his youth he contributed to The Spectator over the signature Philip Homebred, he seems early to have abandoned all care for literature, and he has been reproached by Lord Campbell and others with his neglect of art and letters. On 16 May 1719 he married Margaret, daughter of Charles Cocks (by his wife Mary Cocks, sister of Lord Chancellor Somers) and widow of William Lygon (who died without issue in 1716), by whom he had five sons and two daughters:
Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston (1720–1790), who succeeded him
Hon. Charles Yorke (1722–1770), became, like his father, Lord Chancellor
Lady Elizabeth Yorke (1725–1760), married Lord Anson
Hon. Joseph Yorke (d. 1792), a diplomat, created Baron Dover
Hon. John Yorke (1728–1801), Member of Parliament for Reigate and Higham Ferrers
Hon. James Yorke (1730–1808), became Bishop of Ely
Lady Margaret Yorke, married Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Bt
In 1739, he purchased Wimpole Hall, the greatest country house in Cambridgeshire.
He is buried, with many of his descendants, at the St. Andrew Churchyard at Wimpole. Hardwicke was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son, Philip. His monument was sculpted by Peter Scheemakers.
His cousin Sir William Yorke, 1st Baronet had a highly successful career as a judge in Ireland, becoming Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas.
The prosecution of Christopher Layer for treason as a Jacobite raised Yorke's reputation as a forensic orator; and in 1723, having already become attorney-general, he passed through the House of Commons the bill of pains and penalties against Francis Atterbury. He was excused, on the ground of his personal friendship, from acting for the crown in the impeachment of the Earl of Macclesfield in 1725; he soon found a new patron in the Duke of Newcastle.
Lord Hardwicke is also remembered as one of the two authors of the Yorke–Talbot slavery opinion whilst he was a crown law officer in 1729. The opinion was sought to determinate the legality of slavery and Hardwicke (then Philip Yorke) and Charles Talbot opined that it was legal. The opinion was disseminated and relied upon widely. Lord Hardwicke would subsequently endorse the views in the opinion in a judicial capacity in Pearne v Lisle (1749) Amb 75, 27 ER 47. He rendered valuable service to Walpole's government by his support of the bill for prohibiting loans to foreign powers (1730), of the increase of the army (1732) and of the Excise Bill (1733).