mental border (Mayo, Medals, i. pl. 13, No. 2). In the same year he issued by subscription another Culloden medal, with a rather pretentious reverse, the Duke of Cumberland as Hercules trampling upon Discord. This was sold in silver for one guinea, and in gold for ‘two guineas, for the Fashion.’ Before producing these medals Yeo had engraved a seal with the head of the Duke of Cumberland, taken from the life. In 1745 he was lodging in London at a druggist's near Craven Street, Strand, and in 1746 in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden (Numismatic Chronicle, new ser. xv. 90 f.).
In 1749 Yeo was appointed assistant engraver to the Royal Mint, and in 1775 he succeeded John Sigismund Tanner [q. v.] as chief engraver. He was a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1760, and was one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, to whose first two exhibitions he was a contributor, sending in 1770 a proof impression of his five-guinea piece. He died, while still in office as chief engraver, on 3 Dec. 1779 (Gent. Mag. 1779, p. 616). His small collection of coins and medals was sold by auction at Langford's, Covent Garden, on 2 and 3 Feb. 1780, the sale including his graving tools and colours for painting, ‘among which (says the catalogue) is a quantity of his very curious and much esteemed lake’ (crimson, scarlet, and yellow).
The signature of this medallist is R. Yeo and Yeo. Besides the medals enumerated below he made two of the prize medals for Winchester College, and two of the metallic admission tickets for Vauxhall Gardens are signed by him (Numismatic Chronicle, 1898, pl. vii. 2, 5, &c.). Several other Vauxhall tickets may also be attributed to him, and if the well-known ‘Hogarth’ ticket for Vauxhall (ib. fig. 2, cp. pl. vii. 4) is rightly assigned to him, he must have begun to work as a medallist before May 1733, the date when Jonathan Tyers [q. v.] presented Hogarth with the ticket in question (W. Chaffers, Cat. of Forman and Browne Collection, 1892, p. 175, No. 3483).
The following medals may be mentioned: 1746, Culloden Medals; 1749, Freemasons of Minorca; 1750, Academy of Ancient Music; 1752, Chancellor's Medal, Cambridge; 1760, Captain Wilson's Voyage to China (Mayo, Medals, i. 97).
[Hawkins's Medallic Illustrations, ed. Franks and Grueber; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Yeo's Sale Cat. (Dept. of Coins, Brit. Museum).]
YEOWELL, JAMES (1803?–1875), antiquary, born about 1803 in London, is said to have been employed in early life under the vestry of Shoreditch, and to have worked at indexing and kindred labours for the London booksellers. Soon after the establishment by William John Thoms [q. v.] of ‘Notes and Queries,’ Yeowell became sub-editor, and he filled this position for more than twenty years, retiring in September 1872. During this period Yeowell supplied by assiduous research at the British Museum the answers which appeared each week under the heading of ‘Queries with Answers.’ He lived at first in Pentonville, near the Sadlers' Wells Theatre, and then at Barnsbury.
On his retirement from ‘Notes and Queries’ he was nominated a poor brother at the Charterhouse by the Duke of Buccleuch at the suggestion of Thoms. He died at the Charterhouse on 10 Dec. 1875, being buried in Highgate cemetery on 14 Dec. He was ‘probably the last nonjuror, if not the last Jacobite, in England’ (Doran, London in Jacobite Times, ii. 354).
Yeowell was the author of: 1. ‘Chronicles of the Ancient British Church anterior to the Saxon Era,’ new ed. 1847; it originally appeared during 1839 in a monthly periodical. 2. ‘A Literary Antiquary: Memoir of William Oldys, with his Diary, Notes from Adversaria, and an Account of the London Libraries,’ 1862; this came out in ‘Notes and Queries’ during 1861 and 1862. He edited in 1853 the poetical works of Sir Thomas Wyatt and of Surrey for the Aldine series; compiled, with other index work, the general indexes to the first three series of ‘Notes and Queries,’ and an index to Strickland's ‘Queens of England;’ and he assisted Lord Braybrooke in the fourth edition of the diary of Pepys (1854).
Yeowell's books were sold with other collections by Sotheby, Wilkinson, & Hodge on 12 Nov. 1873 and five following days. His collections for the biography of Englishmen are now at the British Museum; they consist of eleven folio volumes, thirty-seven octavo volumes, and eight parcels.
[Notes and Queries, 5th ser. iv. 481, 9th ser. iv. 365; Athenæum, 18 Dec. 1875 p. 831, 25 Dec. p. 881; information from Rev. H. V. Le Bas of Charterhouse, and Mr. Merton A. Thoms; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
YESTER, Lord. [See Hay, William, d. 1576.]
YEVELE, HENRY de (d. 1400), master-mason and architect, was son of Roger de Yevele and his wife Mariona. The name, which has been spelt and misprinted in a multitude of ways, is surmised to have been a place-name indicating connection with Yeovil, Iffley, or Yeaveley in Derbyshire; a
