Introduction
Major Sir Hubert Winthrop Young, KCMG, DSO, (1885–1950) was an English soldier, Liberal Party politician, diplomat and colonial governor.
Early life and army
Born in 1885, Young was educated at Eton before being commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1904. After four year he was transferred to the Indian Army as an officer in the 116th Mahrattas. Young served on the north west frontier becoming an assistant political officer in Mesopotamia during the first world war. He was awarded the DSO for gallantry in Mezerib, Syria in September 1918.
Diplomat
In 1919 Young joined the Foreign Office in London, after three years he was transferred to the Colonial Office as an assistant secretary in the Middle East Department. He was later appointed Colonial Secretary at Gibraltar. In 1929 he moved to Iraq and in 1932 was appointed the first Minister of Baghdad. After a few months he was appointed Governor of Nyasaland, the first of three governorships:
- Malawi (Nyasaland) - Governor (22 November 1932 to 9 April 1934)
- Northern Rhodesia - Governor (1935–1938)
- Trinidad and Tobago - Governor (8 July 1938 - 1942)
Young had been knighted in 1934 and in 1942 he returned to London where he organised European relief work until he retired in 1945.
He wrote the sympathetic book The Independent Arab, a part-memoir, part-travelogue detailing his diplomatic and military time in the Middle East.
Politics
Following his retirement he took an interest in politics and stood twice as a candidate in the 1945 general election at Harrow West for the Liberal Party and again at a by-election in Edge Hill, Liverpool in 1947 without success.
Family life
Young had married Margaret Rose Mary Reynold in 1924 and they had three sons, Young died in Portugal on 20 April 1950.