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Robert Walpole, first Earl of Orford (1676–1745), was a rich and influential man. He appears to have been a very able politician – he led the British government but rejected the title ‘Prime Minister’.
Walpole’s son, also Robert Walpole (1701–1751), became the second Earl of Orford and married Margaret Rolle, which gives a Devon connection close to the landed Yeo line.
A John Yeo was employed in the service of one or other of these two peers. It seems that John was by no means a menial domestic servant, as he left more than £300 in his will, which was dated 27 October 1729. It was administered in London in 1733 by his widow Jane Yeo.
John was the youngest son of George Yeo and his second wife Mary Bent, and was baptised at Huish in 1702 and married Jane Cole in London at the parish church of St Marylebone in 1725. There is no obvious recorded burial in London, where it is reasonable to assume that John would have died.
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