Sir William Young, 2nd Baronet

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An 1802 caricature of Young titled "A Negro Chieftain", referencing his ownership of slaves in the West Indies

Sir William Young, 2nd Baronet, FRS, FSA (December 1749 – 10 January 1815) was a British politician and colonial administrator.[1] He was the governor of Tobago from 1807 – January 1815, and Member of Parliament for St Mawes, 19 June 1784 – 3 November 1806,[2] and Buckingham, 5 November 1806 – 23 March 1807.[3]

Early life

William Young was born in

Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, governor of Dominica, and his second wife, Elizabeth Young, the daughter of the mathematician Brook Taylor. His siblings included Sarah Elizabeth, Portia, Elizabeth, Mary Young Sewell, Henry, John, and Olivia.[4] As a child, he and ten other family members were featured in the oil on canvas painting, The Family of Sir William Young, Baronet (ca.1766) by Johan Zoffany.[5] He enrolled at Clare College, Cambridge in 1767 but transferred to University College, Oxford, on 26 November 1768.[6]
After graduating he travelled France and Italy and documented his travels. In 1777, he published The spirit of Athens, an acclaimed insight into the political and philosophical history of Greece.

Career

A portrait of the Young family by Johan Zoffany c. 1767; William Young is first from right.

In 1782, Young he was appointed by the proprietors of the colony of

union with Ireland, foreign and colonial policy, and parliamentary reform.[6]

On 30 October 1791, Young took a break from British politics and departed on a trip for several months in which he explored Barbados, St Vincent, Tobago, and Grenada, failing to save his plantations from bankruptcy and learn about the sugar industry and slave trade in the West Indies.[6] He later documented part of his travels in the appendix of the second edition of An Historical Survey of the Island of Saint Domingo by Bryan Edwards in 1801, a book that defended the slave trade,[9] in which he also served as chief editor.[6] He printed a posthumous work of his grandfather, Brook Taylor, entitled Contemplatio Philosophica for private circulation in 1793, prefaced by a life of the author, and with an appendix containing letters by Bolingbroke, Bossuet, and others.[10] Notable works by Young also included The rights of Englishmen, or, The British constitution of government compared with that of a democratic republic (1793); Considerations on Poorhouses and Workhouses: their Pernicious Tendency (1796), Instructions for the Armed Yeomanry (1797) and The West Indian Commonplace Book (1807).[6]

Young reported that he had been extremely well treated by his slaves, who he claimed had presented him with gifts and put on festivities for him. On returning home to England to resume his MP duties for St Mawes in 1792, he advocated the amelioration of conditions for slaves, arguing that the trade of human beings from Africa to the islands would naturally die out without the need for parliamentary intervention.

Governor of Tobago, a post which he retained until his death. He died on 10 January 1815 at Government House, Tobago.[6]

Personal life

On 12 August 1777, he married Sarah at

Archbishop of Dublin
. She survived Young, dying 15 years later after his death in 1830.

References

  1. ^ a b c E. I. Carlyle, 'Young, Sir William, second baronet (1749–1815)’, rev. Richard B. Sheridan, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [1]
  2. ^ "The House of Commons, Constituencies Beginning with "S"". Leigh Rayment. Archived from the original on 10 August 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  3. ^ "The House of Commons, Constituencies Beginning with "B"". Leigh Rayment. Archived from the original on 10 August 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  4. ^ "The Family of Sir William Young, 1st Baronet, ca.1766". 62ndregiment.org. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8223-2338-9
    . Retrieved 25 June 2011.
  6. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30284. Retrieved 25 June 2011. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  7. ^ "Library and Archive catalogue". Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  8. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  9. ^ "Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
  10. ^ Charles Knight, ed., "Taylor, Brook" in Biography: Or, Third Division of "The English Encyclopedia" Vol.5, p. 927
  11. ^ "Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
Parliament of Great Britain
Preceded by Member of Parliament for
William Drummond 1795–96
George Nugent 1796
Jeremiah Crutchley
from 1796 		Succeeded by
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Parliament of Great Britain
 Member of Parliament for
1801–1806
With: Jeremiah Crutchley to 1802
William Windham
from 1802 		Succeeded by
Scrope Bernard
Sir John Newport, Bt
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Buckingham
1806–1807
With: Thomas Grenville 		Succeeded by
Sir John Borlase Warren, Bt
Thomas Grenville
Baronetage of Great Britain
Preceded by
William Young
 Baronet
(of North Dean)
1788–1815 		Succeeded by
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