Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke, PC (2 April 1799 – 17 September 1873) was a British naval commander and Conservative politician.

He later joined HMS Leander (60) under the flag of Sir David Milne, on the North American station, where he was given the command of the Jane, a small vessel carrying dispatches between Halifax and Bermuda.

In 1849, while commanding HMS Vengeance, he acted as a mediator between the Mazzinian rebel and the Kingdom of Sardinia during the rebellion in Genoa following the defeat during the First War of Independence.

For this actions, he was decorated by the Sardinian King Victor Emmanuel II with a Gold Medal of Military Valour,[1] which he was authorized to accept by Queen Victoria only in 1855.

Charlotte got married in 1849 to Wimpole farmhand, John Rumbold, and the following was noted in Pratt's baptism record from 2 April 1848 (presumably by local genealogist Thomas Peter Roysse Layng, who transcribed the parish registers in 1982):[5] 18-year-old servant girl Charlotte gave birth to a son, James Pratt, who was baptised at Wimpole on the 2 April 1848.

The following year, the Earl arranged a marriage for Charlotte with one John Rumbold in return for a cottage at Brick End and financial support for the child.

In harvest time to see her swinging along the road with a bundle of corn balanced on her head, both arms akimbo, was a study in colour, figure and poise".