People Australia

Henry Edward Fox Young (1803-1870), by J. W. Beattie

Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts, State Library of Tasmania, AUTAS001125646844

Sir Henry Edward Fox Young (c.1808–1870), colonial administrator, was born around 1808 at Brabourne, Kent, England to Sir Aretas William Young (c.1777/78–1835), military officer and lieutenant governor of Prince Edward Island, and his wife Sarah, the daughter of Colonel Sir William Cox.[1] Henry was educated at Dean’s School, Bromley, and in 1827 was admitted to the Inner Temple.[2] However, it appears that he did not practice law, instead travelling to Trinidad to join his father that same year.[3] Military service had brought Lieutenant-Colonel Aretas Young to Trinidad in 1813; he served also in Grenada. He spent much of the period 1820–23 administering Trinidad in the governor’s absence, but in 1826 resigned his commission in the army and took up the newly created position of ‘protector of slaves’ in Demerara (later British Guiana), despite his opposition to compulsory manumission.[4] This position was created to enforce the British government’s recently adopted policy, which was designed to ameliorate the conditions for enslaved people in the face of mounting criticism from the anti-slavery lobby in parliament. Aretas’s approach to this position was heavily criticised by George Murray, secretary of state for war and the colonies, who complained of the ‘extraordinary’ number of punishments recorded against enslaved people compared to the absence of complaints by enslaved people.[5] In 1830 he was declared unfit to hold the office and recalled to England to explain his conduct.[6]Dismissed from the position, he was given the post of governor of Prince Edward Island, which had since become vacant.[7]

Following his arrival in Trinidad, Henry Young was given a number of different positions. He initially took up the role of clerk in the colonial treasury. The next year he was appointed colonial aide-de-camp to Sir Benjamin D’Urban, and a lieutenant-colonel in the Demerara militia. In 1829 he was made acting recorder of the orphan chamber and board of unadministered estates in Demerara, a position which entailed negotiations with his father concerning the children of white fathers and enslaved mothers, among other matters.[8] The following year he was made sworn clerk and notary public in the registrar’s department in Demerara.[9] Following his father’s dismissal from the role, Young was made ‘protector of slaves’ in Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice in his place.[10] Although a condition of appointment to the position of protector of slaves was that the applicant not own ‘field slaves,’ Young received compensation of £208/0/3 for four enslaved people in British Guiana in 1836 as part of the board of directors of the church and poor fund.[11] In 1834 he took on the positions of treasurer, secretary, puisne judge, and member of council at St. Lucia and the following year was appointed government secretary and member of the court of policy in British Guiana.[12] In 1835 he was appointed government secretary of British Guiana, a position which he held until 1846.[13]

In December 1846 Young wrote to the colonial secretary, the third Earl Grey, requesting a promotion and was offered the position of lieutenant governor of the eastern districts of the Cape of Good Hope, which he accepted in January 1847.[14] He returned to England, where he was knighted, before embarking for the Cape.[15] Within two months of arriving in the colony, however, he accepted an appointment as lieutenant governor of South Australia.[16] He returned to England, where, on 15 April 1848 at St James, Westminster, he married Augusta Sophia Marryat (1829–1913). They had seven children: Aretas William Charles (1849–1933), Augusta Juliana (1850–1931), Carmichal Light (1851–1937), Iola Caroline (1854–1913), Selina Elliott Fox (1855–1906), Ethel Catherine (1858–1900), and Beatrice Ellen (1860–1947).[17]

Augusta was the daughter of Charles Marryat (1802–1884), a wealthy West India merchant and owner of enslaved people in Grenada, Trinidad, St Lucia, and Jamaica.[18] Her grandfather, merchant and British member of parliament Joseph Marryat (1757–1824), was based in Grenada from the mid-1780s until 1791, during which time he was active as a merchant and, in 1789, elected to the House of Assembly. He also invested in plantations and enslaved people in Trinidad, Grenada, Jamaica, and St Lucia. Returning to England, he became a prominent advocate for planters’ interests as agent for Trinidad from 1805 and for Grenada from 1815.[19] As an MP from 1808 until his death, he persistently used his political platform to oppose the abolition of slavery.[20] Also chairman of Lloyds Bank from 1811, Joseph died prior to the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. He was regarded as ‘immensely rich’ at death, and probate was granted on a personal estate (excluding landed property) valued at between £200,000 and £250,000. Joseph Marryat’s two sons, Charles and Joseph, inherited the merchant house and West Indies land holdings.[21] Between November 1835 and March 1837, the pair also received almost £34,000 in compensation for the freedom of 1,059 enslaved people across fourteen plantations.[22]

Shortly after they were wed the Youngs embarked for South Australia.[23] Augusta had family ties to South Australia, as the niece of Adelaide’s bishop Augustus Short (1802–1883), who had arrived in the colony in December 1847.[24]Her brother Charles Marryat (1827–1906) later immigrated to South Australian in 1853 as an Anglican clergyman and was established as a rector and then archdeacon of Adelaide.[25] During his time as governor of the colony of South Australia, Young proclaimed large tracts of land open to sale.[26] In 1849 he endowed Saint Peters Church of England Collegiate school, which had been founded by Bishop Short, with a grant of land for the construction of a new schoolhouse.[27] In 1850, with a view to securing his oldest son’s future, Young bought 804 acres of land on Ramindjeri Country near Encounter Bay in the Inman Valley.[28] He was castigated for this by the South Australian Gazette and Mining Journal, which argued that he was flouting a rule, established by colonial secretary Lord Glenelg in 1835, which stated that ‘No person officially connected with the sale of lands  … should themselves become purchasers or holders of land.’[29]

In 1852 Young passed the Bullion Act, which successfully helped to arrest an economic crisis in South Australia that was caused by the mass exodus of men to the goldfields of the eastern colonies. This act allowed gold to be assayed into ingots and ensured that miners brought gold back into the colony.[30] He was enthusiastic about the opportunities for trade represented by the Murray River, and in 1853 he accompanied Captain Francis Cadell onboard the Lady Augusta, named after Augusta Young, on the first steamer voyage to navigate the river.[31] He was also responsible for the building of South Australia’s first public railway between Goolwa, on the Murray and Port Elliot on the coast, allowing produce transported down the river to be shipped overseas.[32] In 1853 the South Australian legislative council drafted a bill to allow for responsible government. Young created a political storm when he withheld despatches from the legislative council and persuaded them to accept an upper house of nominees for life, stating incorrectly that the British parliament would not accept elected representatives.[33] The despatches were published in the Victorian papers and a monster petition protesting against nominated upper house representatives, signed by almost 5,000 colonists, was sent to the Queen and published in the South Australian Register in 1854.[34] The bill was returned by the British parliament and Young was appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), in which role he remained until 1861.[35]

Young reached Van Dieman’s land in January 1855, nine months before self-government was proclaimed there.[36]Shortly after his arrival John Stephen Hampton, comptroller-general of convicts, was called to give evidence before a select committee inquiry into convict administration. Hampton refused to do so. The speaker of the legislative council issued a warrant for his arrest, but Young prorogued the council while he obtained a judicial opinion on the legality of the warrant. The judicial opinion pronounced against the legislative council.[37] Young’s actions made him unpopular in the press.[38]

In December 1861 the family sailed for London where they took up residence in Kensington Gardens Square, Middlesex.[39] Young was one of the early directors for the Australian Land, Mortgage and Finance Company in 1863 and was its chairman and president from 1866–68.[40] The company’s stated object was to ‘afford a safe medium for the advancement of capital on mortgage in the Australian colonies.’[41] It raised money in Britain, which it lent to pastoralists in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, who needed capital to fence their properties or buy the freehold of their stations. The company also acted as consignment agents for the pastoralists who required short term loans pending payment from the sale of their wool.[42]

Young died on 18 September 1870 at his home at 77 Kensington Gardens Square, leaving a bequest of £7,000 to his wife during her lifetime, which was to be divided among his children on her death.[43] His wife died in 1913, leaving a much larger bequest of £34,955.[44] The land in Inman Valley passed to the seven children who gave Aretas, the only sibling then living in South Australia, the power to manage their estates.[45] The County of Young, proclaimed in 1860, was named after him, and St Peter’s Cathedral in North Adelaide contains a window in his memory.[46] Young contributed to the colonisation of South Australia through the release of land for sale during his time as governor, through his own purchase of land in the colony, and through his connection to the Australian Land, Mortgage and Finance Company which further cemented the pastoral industry in the eastern colonies of Australia and continued the dispossession of First Nations peoples from their lands. He was positioned to do this through his civil service in the West Indies, including his time as ‘Protector of Slaves,’ and through an advantageous marriage connecting him to the Marryat family, whose wealth was derived from the labour of enslaved people.

[1] Young, Aretas William, 1798, Marriage Licence Bonds, Diocese of Ossary, Public Record Office of Ireland, via Familysearch.

[2] ‘The Late Governor Young,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 25 October 1870, 5; ‘Biographical Sketch of Sir Henry Edward Fox Young, Lieut.-Governor of South Australia,’ Launceston Examiner, 2 January 1855, 2; Young, Henry Edward Fox, The Inner Temple, accessed 19 November 2025, https://archives.innertemple.org.uk/names/586ba398-dc6c-4328-97bd-6e47fb7e55d7.

[3] Young, Henry Edward Fox, The Inner Temple.

[4] Edward Irving Carlyle, ‘Young, Aretas William,’ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900, v. 63 (London: Elder, Smith & Co, 1900), 356; Caroline Quarrier Spence, ‘Ameliorating Empire: Slavery and Protection in the British Colonies, 1783–1865,’ (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 2014), 222.

[5] George Murray to Sir B. D’Urban, 2 September 1829, Protectors of Slaves Reports, British Parliamentary Papers, 20 ‘Protectors of Slaves Reports,’ House of Commons PP (1831) XXV Despatch British Parliamentary Papers.

[6] Viscount Goderich to Sir B. D’Urban, 30 November 1830, Protectors of Slaves Reports, British Parliamentary papers, 114-122.

[7] Phillip Buckner, ‘Young, Sir Aretas William,’ Dictionary of Canadian Biography, v. 6 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003), accessed 5 November 2025, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/young_aretas_william_6E.html.

[8] ‘Alleged Death of Sir Henry E. Fox Young,’ Mercury (Hobart), 28 October 1870, 2; H. E. F. Young to A. W. Young, July–October 1829, Parliamentary Papers 1830–1831 (262), Reports from Protectors of Slaves in Colonies of Demerara, Berbice, Trinidad, St Lucia, Cape of Good Hope and Mauritius, 62, 263.

[9] ‘Alleged Death of Sir Henry E. Fox Young,’ Mercury (Hobart), 28 October 1870, 2.

[10] H. J. Gibbney, ‘Young, Sir Henry Edward Fox (1803–1870),’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, accessed 19 November 2025, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/young-sir-henry-edward-fox-4902/text8207.

[11] Spence, ‘Ameliorating Empire,’ 219; British Guiana 2243, Legacies of British Slavery, accessed 26 November 2025, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/7052; ‘British Guiana 2573,’ Legacies of British Slavery, accessed 26 November 2025, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/claim/view/7667.

[12] ‘Alleged Death of Sir Henry E. Fox Young,’ Mercury (Hobart), 28 October 1870, 2; Edwin Hodder, The History of South Australia, v. I; Sidney Lee, ed., ‘Young, Henry Edward Fox,’ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 v. 63 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1900), 375-6.

[13] ‘Alleged Death of Sir Henry E. Fox Young,’ Mercury (Hobart), 28 October 1870, 2; Edwin Hodder, The History of South Australia, v. I; Sidney Lee, ed., ‘Young, Henry Edward Fox,’ Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900 v. 63 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1900), 375-6.

[14] Sir Henry Young to 3rd Earl Grey, 14 December 1846, GRE/B133/11/1, Durham University Library; Sir Henry Young to 3rd Earl Grey, 13 January 1847, GRE/B133/11/2-3, Durham University Library.

[15] No title, The Times (London), 16 February 1847, 5; ‘Multiple News Items,’ Morning Post (London), 3 February 1847, 4.

[16] ‘Multiple News Items,’ The Standard (London), 12 June 1847, 4.

[17] ‘Personal,’ Advertiser (Adelaide), 24 March 1933, 20; Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries, Morning Post (London), 28 April 1885, 1;‘Late Mrs. A. J. Hardy,’ Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 25 July 1931, 26; Carmichael Light Young, 1851, Adelaide, Birth Registrations, Genealogy SA, https://www.genealogysa.org.au/; Carmichael Light Young, 1937, National Probate Calendar, Principal Probate Registry, London, via Ancestry; Iola C Fox-Young, Civil Registration Death Index, FreeBMD, accessed 19 November 2025, https://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl; Selina Elliot Young, Births in the District of Hobart, 1855, RGD33/1/6/ no 617, Names Index, Libraries Tasmania, accessed 19 November 2025, https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD33-1-6-P248; Beatrice Ellen Young, Births in the District of Hobart,1860, RGD33-1-7P266, Names Index, Libraries Tasmania, accessed 19 November 2025, https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD33-1-7P266; Ethel Catherine Young, Births in the District of Hobart, 1858, RGD33-1-7P57, Names Index, Libraries Tasmania, accessed 19 November 2025, https://libraries.tas.gov.au/Digital/RGD33-1-7P57; Brompton cemetery register, 8 May 1900, work 97, piece number 180, The National Archive, Kew, via Ancestry; Woodroffe, Beatrice Ellen, 31 May 1847, National probate Calendar, Principal Probate Registry, via Ancestry.

[18] ‘Augusta Sophia Marryat,’ Birth 16 Feb 1829, England, Births and Christenings, via FamilySearch; Marriages Marriages, Oxford Journal, 22 April 1848, 4; Westminster Anglican Parish Registers, 15 April 1848, City of Westminster Archives, via Ancestry; Charles Marryat, Legacies of British Slavery, accessed 12 November 2025 from www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/42069; ‘Concerning People,’ Register(Adelaide), 12 March 1913, 6.

[19] Catherine Hall, ‘Marryat, Joseph,’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2016) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/107425.

[20] Lawrence Taylor & David R Fisher, ‘MARRYAT, Joseph (1757–1824)’ in R. Thorne (ed) The History of Parliament, (Boydell & Brewer: 1986) www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/marryat-joseph-1757-1824; ‘Joseph Marryat senior,’ Legacies of British Slavery, UCL, www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146630485.

[21] Catherine Hall, ‘Marryat, Joseph,’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2016) https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/107425; ‘Joseph Marryat Esq,’ 16 Feb 1824, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, via Ancestry; ‘Multum in Parvo,’ Cambridge Chronicle and Journal, 30 January 1824, 1.

[22] ‘Charles Marryat,’ Legacies of British Slavery, UCL www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/42069; ‘Joseph Marryat,’ Legacies of British Slavery, UCL, www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/11416.

[23] Westminster Anglican Parish Registers, 15 April 1848, City of Westminster Archives, via Ancestry; ‘The “Sibella” From London,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 19 July 1848, 2.

[24] Dirk Van Dissel, ‘Augustus Short (1802–1883),’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/short-augustus-4577. 

[25] T. T. Reed, ‘Marryat, Charles (1827–1906),’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/marryat-charles-7497.

[26] For example, ‘Government Gazette,’ Adelaide Times, 7 May 1849, 4; ‘Government Gazette Notices,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 7 June 1850, 4; ‘Government Gazette,’ Adelaide Times, 2 August 1850, 3.

[27] Young, Sir Henry Edward Fox, State Library of South Australia, accessed 3 December 2025, https://archival.collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/prg/PRG46_HenryYoung_serieslist.pdf; Our History, St Peter’s College,  accessed 3 December 2025, https://www.stpeters.sa.edu.au/discover/our-history/.

[28] ‘Sir Henry Young a Land-holder,’ South Australian Gazette and Mining Journal (Adelaide), 18 October 1851, 2; Young to 3rd Earl Grey, 30 June 1850, GRE B/133/11/30bv, Durham University Library; Ramindjeri, Mobile Language Team, accessed 10 December 2025, https://mobilelanguageteam.com.au/languages/ramindjeri/.

[29] ‘Governor Young and his Land Purchases,’ South Australian Gazette and Mining Journal (Adelaide), 16 October 1851, 3.

[30] ‘The Gold Bullion Act,’ Adelaide Morning Chronicle, 28 June 1852, 2; Uncoined Gold Act No 1 1852 (SA).

[31] ‘Navigation on the Murray—Dinner to Captain Cadell and his Officers,’ Adelaide Times, 1 November 1853, 2.

[32] Young to 3^rd Earl Grey, 30 June 1850, GRE B/133/11/30bv, Durham University Library; ‘The Southern Districts,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 7 July 1854, 2; ‘The Legislative Council,’ Adelaide Morning Chronicle, 2 September 1852, 3.

[33] ‘The Courier,’ Courier (Hobart), 21 October 1854, 2; ‘The Memorial and the Despatches,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 14 February 1854, 2.

[34] ‘Advertising,’ South Australian Register (Adelaide), 2 February 1854, 2.

[35] ‘The London Gazette of Tuesday, September 19,’ Morning Chronicle (London), 20 September 1854, 2; ‘Hobart Town,’ Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston), 14 December 1861, 2.

[36] ‘The Courier,’ Courier (Hobart), 6 January 1855, 2; 150 Years of Responsible Government, Parliament of Tasmania, accessed 3 December 2025, https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/resources/150parl/150chronology.

[37] Peter Boyce, Hampton, John Stephen (1810–1869), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed online 3 December 2025, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hampton-john-stephen-2151/text2745.

[38] ‘Further Prorogation of Council,’ Tasmanian Daily News (Hobart Town), 16 October 1855, 3.

[39] ‘Shipping,’ Hobart Town Advertiser, 28 December 1861, 4.

[40] ‘Money Market,’ Daily News (London), 11 November 1863, 3; ‘Advertisement and Notices,’ Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 7 December 1866, 1; Monetary and Mercantile Affairs,’ Standard (London), 29 April 1869, 3.

[41] ‘By Magnetic Telegraph,’ Cork Examiner, 4 November 1863, 2.

[42] J. D. Bailey, A Hundred Years of Pastoral Banking: A History of the Australian Mercantile Land and Finance Company 1863-1963 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966).

[43] ‘Miscellaneous,’ Newcastle Chronicle (NSW), 29 December 1870, 4; Henry Edward Fox Young, National Probate Calendar, 1870, Principal Probate Registry, London, via Ancestry.

[44] Young, Dame August Sophia, 30 January 1913, National Probate Calendar, Principal Probate Registry, via Ancestry.

[45] Extracts from SA General Registry Office, Adelaide Hills, accessed 10 December 2025, https://localwiki.org/adelaide-hills/GRO_Merge_%27X%2C_Y%2C_Z%27.

[46] Proclamation, South Australian Government Gazette, 19 April 1960, 345; North Adelaide St Peter’s Cathedral, Flickr, accessed 3 December 2025, https://www.flickr.com/photos/31967465@N04/27740623648.