Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Horatio Arthur York (3 June 1848 - 10 December 1930) C.B. R.E. was Inspector of Railways to the
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
from 1900 to 1913.
Life
He was born on 3 June 1848 near New Wimpole in Cambridgeshire, the fourth son of the Ven the Hon Henry Reginald Yorke (1803-1871) and Flora Elizabeth Campbell (1813-1852).
He was educated at
Cheam School
Cheam School is a mixed preparatory school located in Headley, in the civil parish of Ashford Hill with Headley in Hampshire. Originally a boys school, Cheam was founded in 1645 by George Aldrich.
History
The school started in Cheam, Surrey. ...
and then
Charterhouse School
(God having given, I gave)
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, president ...
.
On 24 August 1869, he married Harriette Forsse in Gravesend, Kent. This marriage ended in divorce in 1891. On 26 July 1893 he married Rebecca Caroline Garstin (d.1943), daughter of the Revd. Anthony Gartin, Rector of St Peter's Church, Redmile, Leicestershire.
He was appointed a
Companion of the Order of the Bath
Companion may refer to:
Relationships Currently
* Any of several interpersonal relationships such as friend or acquaintance
* A domestic partner, akin to a spouse
* Sober companion, an addiction treatment coach
* Companion (caregiving), a caregive ...
in 1904 and knighted on his retirement in 1913.
He died on 10 December 1930 in London and left an estate valued at £4,234 ().
Military career
He entered the
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS or RMA Sandhurst), commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is one of several military academies of the United Kingdom and is the British Army's initial officer training centre. It is located in the town of ...
in 1865. A year later, he joined the
Royal Engineers
The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...
and entered the
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich
The Royal Military Academy (RMA) at Woolwich, in south-east London, was a British Army military academy for the training of commissioned officers of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers. It later also trained officers of the Royal Corps of Sig ...
. In 1869 he was promoted to Lieutenant and received a second commission in the Royal Engineers. He saw service in the Afghan War 1878-80. In 1881 he was promoted to the rank of Captain. He also saw service in the
Mahdist War
The Mahdist War ( ar, الثورة المهدية, ath-Thawra al-Mahdiyya; 1881–1899) was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided On ...
1884-85 and in 1887 achieved the rank of Major. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1894.
Career
He was the British delegate to the International Railway Congresses at Washington in 1905 and at Berne in 1910, and at the International Navigation Congress at Philadelphia in 1912.
He was a director of the
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rai ...
of Canada, and later a director of the
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...
.
The
Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
appointed him as Inspector of Railways in 1891. Following the death of