Henry Young

Sir Henry Young

Sir Henry Edward Fox Young (born April 23, 1803 in Brabourne , Great Britain , † September 18, 1870 in London ) was Governor of South Australia from 1848 to 1854 and then from 1855 to 1861 the first Governor of Tasmania .

Life

Young was born the third son of Sir Aretas William Young in Brabourne, Kent . He attended Dean's School in Bromley , Middlesex , and joined the Inner Temple Bar Association with a view to practice.

In 1827, however, Young was appointed to a position in the treasury of the then colony of Trinidad and in 1828 drove to Demerara in British Guiana . In 1834 he was appointed treasurer on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia , but from 1835 he was again active as government secretary in British Guiana. In 1847 he was in London for lieutenant governor of a region at the Cape of Good Hope appointed. In 1847 Young was made a Knight of the Order of St. Michael and St. George .

On August 1, 1848, Young arrived in South Australia to help set up a colonial government. In 1851 South Australia's first parliament, consisting of 24 members, was formed.

In January 1855 he was appointed the first governor of Van Diemens Land , what is now Tasmania. During his tenure, the island received its first government and its own constitution. In 1856 the island was renamed Tasmania as a sign of distancing itself from its past as a pure penal colony .

After his tenure, Young left Tasmania and returned to England, where he lived in retirement until his death in September 1870. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery , London.

The city of Port Augusta in South Australia is named after Young's wife Augusta .

literature

• HJ Gibbney: Young, Sir Henry Edward Fox . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1966–2012 (English).