John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar

John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar

John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar GCB , GCMG , PC (born August 31, 1807 in Bombay , India , † October 6, 1876 in Bailieborough , Ireland ), until 1870 also known as Sir John Young, 2nd Baronet , was a British Colonial Administrator and the Second Governor General of Canada .

John Young was born in 1807 in Mumbai, India, to Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, and his wife Lucy Frederick; his father was a shareholder and a director of the East India Company . He studied at Eton College and Corpus Christi College , Oxford , where he graduated in law in 1829 . As early as 1831 he was elected to the British House of Commons for the Tories in his native constituency, County Cavan , to which he belonged until 1855. In 1834 he became a member of the Lincoln's Inn Bar Association , but never practiced as a lawyer. from 1831 to 1835 he served as Chief Secretary for Ireland . In 1848 he inherited the title of Baronet from his father , of Bailieborough Castle in the County of Cavan, and in the same year he became chief administrator of the Ionian Islands , which were a British protectorate at the time. After a report was made public in which he promoted unpopular administrative measures, he was recalled, albeit with honor. From 1861 to 1867 he then served as Governor of New South Wales in Australia .

On December 29, 1868, Lisgar was appointed Governor General of Canada and Governor of Prince Edward Island . In the first year of his tenure, the Red River Rebellion broke out under Louis Riel and Young gave the rebels, who only wanted a province of their own under the British crown, an amnesty on December 6, 1869, which was never applied to their leaders has been. The transfer of Ruperts Lands from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Canadian state was delayed by the rebellion, and Lisgar was governor-general of this area until August 1870. As early as June 1870, he had signaled British Columbia that the Canadian Federation was ready to accept it, which in 1871 led to the agreement of a transcontinental rail link to be accepted as a new province. On October 26, 1870, he was raised as Baron Lisgar , of Lisgar and Bailieborough in the County of Cavan, to a peer , which a seat in the House of Lords is connected. From 1870 to 1871 Lisgar was in economic relations repeatedly between the interests of the Crown and the Canadian Prime Minister John Macdonald . For health reasons, he refused to be reappointed Governor General in 1872 and died in 1876. His barony was extinguished on his death because he had no sons.

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• Sir John Young, Baron Lisgar . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).