Young, George, Sir, 1837-1930

Sir George Young, 3rd Baronet, was born on September 15, 1837, in Cookham, Berkshire, England.

He was a British civil servant, reformer, administrator, and scholar. He succeeded his father to the baronetcy in 1848. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union in 1860. He was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1864 but never practised the law. In 1870, he was named one of three royal commissioners to inquire into the conditions of indentured Chinese and Indian labourers, brought in to work the sugar plantations of British Guiana after the abolition of slavery. Young was given the task of drafting a new immigration ordinance. He served as secretary to the royal commission on the Factory and Workshops Acts (1875–1876). In 1882, he was appointed a charity commissioner responsible for reorganizing educational charities provided for under the Endowed Schools Acts. From 1875 he was a member of the Council of University College, London (and president, 1881–1886), taking a prominent part in the Association for Promoting a Teaching University for London. In 1903, he was made chief charity commissioner for England and Wales. After he retired in 1906, he remained active in local government in Berkshire, promoting the charter for Reading University. He also published translations of the poems, e.g., "The Dramas of Sophocles Rendered in English Verse, Dramatic and Lyric" (1888) and "Poems from Victor Hugo in English Verse" (1901).

In 1871, he married Alice Eacy Kennedy (1840–1922). He died on July 4, 1930, in Cookham, Berkshire, England.