Mark Aitchison Young
Sir Mark Aitchison Young , GCMG , ( Chinese 楊慕琦 / 杨慕琦 ; * June 30, 1886 , † May 12, 1974 ) was a British civil servant and governor of various colonies and mandate areas.
Life
Young was in Eton and at King's College of the University of Cambridge trained. In 1909 he joined the Ceylon Civil Service , the public service elite in British Ceylon . From 1915 he served in the First World War the British military .
Colonial administration
From 1923 to 1928 Young Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary of Ceylon, then until 1930 Colonial Secretary of Sierra Leone . From 1930 to 1933 he was chief secretary of the British administration of the Mandate in Palestine . During this time he was the acting High Commissioner between 1931 and 1932.
Young was then from August 5, 1933 to March 1938 Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Barbados and from November 1937 to February 1938 also part of the government of Trinidad and Tobago . After that he was governor and commander in chief of the British mandate in Tanganyika until 1941 .
Hong Kong Governor
From September 1941 to May 1947, Young was the 21st governor of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong . Just three months after taking office, Great Britain entered the Pacific War following the attack on Pearl Harbor . In December 1941, the Japanese army captured the colony after 18 days of fighting. Young signed the British surrender on December 25th in what was remembered as a "black Christmas". During the subsequent Japanese occupation of Hong Kong , Young was a Japanese prisoner of war, first in a camp in Stanley , and later with other high-ranking Allied prisoners in Manchuria .
After the war, Young initially recovered in England for some time. On May 1, 1946, he took over his post as governor and replaced the British military administration. He proposed political reforms that would transfer legislative power to an elected assembly independent of the governor's veto. The proposals received little support as Hong Kong's political future as a British colony was unclear given the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party . Young retired in 1947. His successor as governor, Alexander Grantham , finally abandoned the reform plans.
Awards
Order of St. Michael and St. George :
- CMG 1931
- KCMG 1934
- GCMG 1946
Web links
- Hong Kong Photo 1946-1947 by Hedda Morrison
- The Fall of Hong Kong: Britain, China and the Japanese Occupation by Philip Snow
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| John Robert Chancellor |
High Commissioner of Palestine 1931–1932 (incumbent) |
Arthur Grenfell Wauchope |
| Sir Harold Alfred MacMichael |
Governor of Tanganyika 1938–1941 |
Sir Wilfrid Edward Francis Jackson |
| Sir Geoffry Alexander Stafford Northcote |
Governor of Hong Kong 1941–1947 (interrupted by Japanese occupation and military administration) |
Sir Alexander Grantham |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Young, Mark Aitchison |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 楊慕琦 (Chinese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British Colonial Administrator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 30, 1886 |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 12, 1974 |