Gerald Yorke

Major Gerald Joseph Yorke (10 December 1901 – 29 April 1983) was an English soldier and writer. He was a Reuters correspondent while in China for two years in the 1930s, and wrote a book China Changes (1936). Life Gerald Joseph Yorke was born in the family home, Forthampton Court, near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, on 10 December 1901; the second son of Vincent Wodehouse Yorke and Hon. Maud Evelyn Wyndham. His younger brother was the novelist, Henry Yorke, who wrote under the penname 'Henry Green'. He attended Eton College, and then Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he gained a first class degree in history Bachelor of Arts. On leaving university, an interest in the occult and mysticism led him to contact Aleister Crowley, with whom he was closely associated for four years. Yorke was also a member of Crowley's magical order the A∴A∴, and supervised a number of neophyte members. He joined the Territorial Army and was commissioned in the 21st (Gloucestershire Hussars) Armoured Car Company, Tank Corps in 1922, later gaining the rank of Major. In September 1932 Yorke left England for China, where he travelled extensively reporting for Reuters on the civil war and Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and studying Chinese culture and Buddhism. The travels of Yorke together with his interpreter Li through often bandit-stricken areas were described in his book China Changes and also commented on by adventurer and Special Correspondent to The Times Peter Fleming in his One's Company, a travelogue of a journey to China in 1933. Some of his papers from this period have been given to the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University.