John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar

The Right Honourable The Lord Lisgar GCB GCMG PC
Chief Secretary for Ireland
In office 1 March 1853 – 30 January 1855
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Earl of Aberdeen
Preceded by	Lord Naas
Succeeded by	Edward Horsman
12th Governor of New South Wales
In office 1861–1867
Monarch	Victoria
Preceded by	Sir William Denison
Succeeded by	The Earl Belmore
2nd Governor General of Canada
In office 2 February 1869 – 25 June 1872
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Sir John A. Macdonald
Preceded by	The Viscount Monck
Succeeded by	The Earl of Dufferin
Personal details
Born	(1807-08-31)31 August 1807 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died	6 October 1876(1876-10-06) (aged 69) Bailieborough, County Cavan, Ireland
Nationality	British and Irish
Spouse	Adelaide Dalton (d. 1895)
Education	Eton College
Alma mater	Corpus Christi College, Oxford

John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar GCB GCMG PC (31 August 1807 – 6 October 1876), was a British diplomat and politician. He served as Governor General of Canada (1869–72), Governor of New South Wales (1861–67) and as Chief Secretary for Ireland (1853–55). From 1848 to 1870, he was known as Sir John Young, 2nd Baronet.

Biography

Young was born into an Anglo-Irish family in Bombay, India, eldest son of Sir William Young, 1st Baronet of Bailieborough Castle, who was a director of the East India Company. He was educated at Eton and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating in 1829 and was called to the bar in 1834. He married Adelaide Annabella Tuite Dalton in 1835. In 1831 he became a Member of Parliament, as member for the county of Cavan in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, a position he held for 24 years. A Conservative, in 1841 Young was a Lord of the Treasury for Sir Robert Peel, Secretary of the Treasury in 1844. Young stayed loyal to Peel when the party split over the repeal of the Corn Laws. He became a Peelite and was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland from 1852 to 1855. Young was appointed Lord High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands in 1855. His secret despatches recommending that the islands become a British colony were leaked, leading to his recall in 1859.

Young was appointed Governor of New South Wales in 1860 and was immediately confronted by a crisis stemming from the attempt by the Secretary for Lands, John Robertson, to push radical land legislation through the Parliament. This legislation was passionately opposed by the majority of the Legislative Council. Young agreed to the request of the Premier, Charles Cowper, to swamp the council with new 21 appointees to get the legislation through, although in fact sufficient members of the Council resigned that a quorum could not be formed, forcing it to be prorogued and replaced by a new Council with appointed life members. In due course this passed the land legislation. The rest of his term in New South Wales was less eventful.

Young assumed the office of Governor General of Canada in 1868, when it was vacated by fellow Irishman, the 4th Viscount Monck, but did not officially take up the position until his swearing in on 2 February 1869. After the end of his term in 1872, he returned to Ireland.

He was raised to the peerage as Baron Lisgar, of Lisgar and Bailieborough, in the County of Cavan, on 26 October 1870.

He died on 6 October 1876 at Lisgar House (also known as Castle House), near Bailieborough in County Cavan, Ireland, survived by his wife. Although Lady Lisgar married once more, she and Lord Lisgar are buried in Bailieborough Church of Ireland Graveyard, Bailieborough, County Cavan.

Family

Lady Lisgar by William James Topley

John Young married, on 8 April 1835, Adelaide Annabella Dalton, daughter of Edward Tuite Dalton of Fermor, County Meath, Ireland, and his wife, Olivia, daughter of Sir John Stevenson (who married, secondly, The 2nd Marquess of Headfort, K.P., P.C.). Dalton's date of birth is unknown however she was likely to have been born between 1811 and 1814. Her husband was raised to the peerage, as Baron Lisgar in 1870, and died on 6 October 1876. On 3 August 1878 Baroness Lisgar married her second husband, Sir Francis Charles Fortescue Turville of Bosworth Hall, Leicestershire. She married her third husband, Henry Trueman Mills, of Lubenham, Market Harborough. She died at Paris on 19 July 1895.

Legacy

• Lisgar Collegiate Institute on Lisgar Street in Ottawa takes its name from Lord Lisgar. A likeness of Lord Lisgar is prominently displayed in the school's library.
• Lisgar Street in Toronto and Lisgar Avenue in Saskatoon takes its name from Lord Lisgar.
• In Mississauga, Ontario, a community in the Meadowvale neighbourhood has been called Lisgar. In the fall of 2007, a new Lisgar GO Station was opened on the Milton GO train line, and a Lisgar Middle School in the neighbourhood within the Peel District School Board.
• The Sir John Young Hotel in Sydney, Australia, is named after the baron
• Sir John Young Crescent, Woolloomooloo, Australia, is named after the baron
• The town of Young, NSW, was named after the baron.
• The lake in Tillsonburg, Ontario, was named after the Baron: Lake Lisgar.

Arms

Coat of arms of John Young, 1st Baron Lisgar

Crest On a wreath Argent and Sable a demi-lion rampant Gules charged on the shoulder with a trefoil slipped Or holding in the dexter paw a sprig of three maple leaves all Proper. Escutcheon Argent three piles Sable each charged with a trefoil slipped Or on a chief Sable three annulets Or and in canton the augmentation of a baronet being an inescutcheon a dexter hand erect couped at the wrist and appaumé Gules. Motto Prudentia

References

• Website of the Governor General of Canada

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Young
• Photograph: Baron Lisgar in 1870. McCord Museum
• Photograph: Baron Lisgar in 1870. McCord Museum
• Photograph: Lady Lisgar in 1870. McCord Museum