It should be mentioned here that six young men from Otterbourne were
concerned in the Crimean War—Captain Denzil Chamberlayne and Julian B.
Yonge, though health obliged the latter to return from Varna, while the
former took part in the famous Balaklava charge, and was unhurt, though
his horse was killed. And four of the privates, John Hawkins, James and
William Mason, and Joseph Knight, of whom only James Mason lived to
return. An inscription built into the wall of the churchyard records
their names, with the inscription, suggested by Mr. Keble, “It is good
for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.”
And here William Yonge’s daughter must record Sir William’s never-failing
kindness to her mother and herself, both in matters of business and in
personal criticism, and assistance in those matters in her works in which
the counsel of a man acquainted with the law is needful to prevent
mistakes. Indeed, in the discussions on character and adventures,
nothing was ever more evident to her than that she was talking (as Mr.
Keble said) to a true specimen of the most pure-minded chivalry.
On 16th September 1868 Sir William retired from Parliament, and, on the
9th of August 1870, was sworn of the Privy Council. This appointment
gave him the greater satisfaction as a testimony to his consistent
integrity through his whole parliamentary career, as it came from the
Gladstonian ministry, and he had been forced by his deep Church and State
convictions to separate from Mr. Gladstone, the friend and fellow-worker
of his younger days.
His last great public achievement was the rebuilding and improvement of
the County Hospital. Winchester had been the first provincial city to
possess a County Hospital, and the arrangements had grown antiquated and
by no means accordant with more advanced medical practice. A
subscription was raised, and with the warm co-operation of Warden Robert
S. Barter of Winchester College, the present building was erected, on Mr.
Butterfield’s plans, in a more healthy and airy situation, in the year
1868, with a beautiful chapel for the nurses and patients, and with the
modern system of nursing carried out. As was said, when in 1878 Sir
William resigned the post of Chairman of the Committee, he was the father
and the founder of the institution.
Few men have earned by a lifetime so much honour, gratitude, and
affection as he by one consistent, upright course of life, or have left a
nobler memory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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