Allen Young

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Young as caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in Vanity Fair, December 1877

Sir Allen William Young,

Sir John Franklin
.

Early life

Allen Young was born at

troop ship
Adelaide.

The Fox Expeditions

In 1857, Allen Young offered himself as sailing master of the auxiliary steamship

Franklin expedition, missing since 1845. He also donated 500 pounds to the expedition, and Lady Franklin
gratefully accepted his services. The expedition went on to find the only written record of the missing expedition's fate, and Young himself undertook several lengthy overland sled journeys in the search.

In 1860, Allen Young was captain of Fox, as part of an expedition to determine the feasibility of carrying a

telegraph line from Europe to America via the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. Colonel Taliaferro Shaffner, who had proposed this route, Arctic explorer and physician Dr. John Rae, and senior lieutenant of the Danish Army Theodor Zeilau [da] were in charge of surveying on land. The steamer Bulldog, commanded by McClintock, also took part.[1] Although the expedition reported in favour of executing the plan, it never came to fruition.[2]

The Pandora Expeditions

Map of the Pandora expeditions by Allen Young

In 1874 Allen Young purchased the superseded

knighted
in recognition of his services.

Sir Allen Young planned another expedition in Pandora in 1878, but was induced by a sponsor

James Gordon Bennett, Jr. to sell the vessel to him. She was renamed Jeannette for a United States
Arctic expedition, and subsequently wrecked with heavy loss of life.

Leigh Smith Relief Expedition

In 1881 Sir Allen Young was commissioned to take the steamship Hope in search of Benjamin Leigh Smith's expedition missing in Franz Josef Land, north of Russia. He successfully located the expeditioners early in August, to learn that their vessel Eira had been crushed by ice and sunk on 21 August 1881.

Later Ventures

In 1885 Sir Allen Young was master of the hospital ship Stella supporting British military actions in the Soudan.[3]

During 1886-87 Sir Allen Young proposed and lobbied for leadership of a British Antarctic Expedition, but adequate financial support failed to materialise.[4]

Royal friendship

Sir Allen Young was a friend of the

Edward VII of the United Kingdom. He is remembered for a dinner party he held in London on 24 May 1877 at which arranged for the Prince to sit next to his mistress Lillie Langtry while her husband was discreetly seated elsewhere. Keeping his friendship after the Prince acceded as King, Young is listed as visiting Sandringham House in early 1903.[5]

Notes

  1. .
  2. ^ Roberts, Steven. "The Companies Abroad". Distant Writing: A History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868. Retrieved 5 January 2022.
  3. ^ Argus (newspaper, Melbourne), 20 April 1885.
  4. ^ Argus (newspaper, Melbourne), 17 March 1887.
  5. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. No. 36972. London. 8 January 1903. p. 7.

References

  • Clements Robert Markham, Allen Young, in The Geographical Magazine, Royal Geographical Society, 1916.
  • Clements Robert Markham, The lands of silence: a history of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, Cambridge University Press, 1921.