Henry Young

Early life

Young was the third son of Sir Aretas William Young.

Early career

Young was appointed in 1827 to a position in the colonial treasury in Trinidad, and in 1828 was transferred to Demerara, British Guiana. From 1833, he was involved in the emancipation of slaves in the British Caribbean colonies. In 1834, he was posted briefly to St Lucia as treasurer, secretary and member of the council, and in 1835 returned to British Guiana as government secretary.

In 1847, Young returned to London, before he was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Eastern District of the Cape Colony (later the Eastern Cape) in South Africa. He was knighted in 1847.

Governor of South Australia

Young was transferred a few months later to South Australia where he arrived on 1 August 1848 on the Forfarshire. Under Young, South Australia received its first formal parliament. The lower house, the House of Assembly, comprised 36 members, each elected from a different area.

Governor Young, described as a man of zeal and foresightedness, found a lack of adequate transport was hampering the development of commerce, industry and agriculture. Since there was huge potential for transporting agricultural produce from Victoria and riverine New South Wales via the River Murray thence South Australian ports, in 1851 he offered a prize of £2000 for the first person to travel up the to its junction with the Darling River (now the town of Wentworth) in a paddle steamer. The prize was claimed in 1853 by Francis Cadell with his steamer Lady Augusta (named for Sir Henry's wife). Due to the difficulty of navigating the Murray Mouth, Young supported building the railway from the river port of Goolwa to the new sea port at Port Elliot (named after his friend, Charles Elliot). Young was a supporter of St Peter's College and the Young Prize, awarded annually from income from a section of land at Dry Creek, and vested in the college for the purpose, was named for him. He was president of the Adelaide Philosophical Society 1853–1854. Though it was expected sooner or later, the order for his transfer to Van Diemen's Land (today's Tasmania) gave little time for the usual formalities and farewells.

Governor of Van Diemens Land/Tasmania

Young began his duties in Van Diemens Land in January 1855. Sir Henry Fox Young's term as Governor of Van Diemens Land was significant, because in 1856 the Island colony received self-government, and was renamed Tasmania to mark the fact and as a deliberate measure by free-settlers to distance its convict past. Sir Henry was the first Tasmanian Governor to occupy Government House, Hobart, the beautiful neo-gothic Vice-Regal residence on the banks of the River Derwent.

Later life

Young died on 18 September 1870. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

Youngtown, Tasmania, was named in honour of Young.

Family

Young married Augusta Sophia Marryat (born 1829) in 1848. She was the daughter of a former slaveholder, Charles Marryat, of Potter's Bar, Middlesex, who had been compensated part of £34,000 in the 1830s upon the emancipation of slavery. Augusta (later Lady Young) was the niece of the novelist Captain Frederick Marryat, and sister of Charles Marryat, Dean of Adelaide (1887–1906). Her mother was Caroline Short, whose brother, Augustus Short, was the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide.

The couple had four children, two boys and two girls.

The town of Port Augusta in South Australia is named after Augusta, as is the tiny suburb of Marryatville in Adelaide's eastern suburbs.

Augusta outlived her husband by 43 years, dying in Christchurch, Hampshire in 1913.

He is an ancestor of British singer and actor Will Young

References

before=Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Holt Robe | after=Sir Richard G. MacDonnell, CB | title=Governor of South Australia | years=1848–1854 before= Sir William Denison (Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land) | after= Colonel Thomas Browne | title= Governor of Tasmania | years= 1855–1861

References

1. Gibbney, H. J.. (1976). "Sir Henry Edward Fox Young (1803–1870)".
2. {{Dictionary of Australian Biography
3. Harris, C. A. (2006). Young, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30264 Sir Henry Edward Fox (1808–1870)], rev. Lynn Milne, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2006. {{DNBfirst
4. Stewien, Ron. (2007). "A history of the South Australian Railways volume 1: the early years". [[Australian Railway Historical Society]] (Victorian Division).
5. (10 January 1922). "A Veteran SM". [[The Register (Adelaide)]].
6. [http://www.adelaide.edu.au/rssa/history/ History of the Royal Society of South Australia] {{webarchive. link. (2012-04-04)
7. (16 December 1854). "Testimonial to His Excellency the Governor". [[The Adelaide Observer]].
8. "Placenames Tasmania".
9. (2019). "Links in the Chain: British slavery, Victoria and South Australia". Before/Now.
10. Bowden, Tim. (9 October 2013). "The A-Z story of the history behind Adelaide's suburbs".
11. "PRG 160/52: Two diaries recorded by Bishop Augustus Short, D.D.". State Library of South Australia.
12. "Port Augusta, SA".
13. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002d34s/who-do-you-think-you-are-series-22-7-will-young