Mark Aitchison Young (30 June 1886 – 12 May 1974) was a long-serving British colonial administrator and a knight (GCMG, KStJ), born in British India into a family of Indian Civil Service officials. Educated in Britain, he joined the Ceylon civil service in 1909 and served there until 1928, seeing active service in the First World War and rising to Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary of Ceylon; from 1928 to 1930 he was Colonial Secretary of Sierra Leone, and from 1930 to 1933 Chief Secretary of the British Mandate of Palestine. From August 1933 to March 1938 he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Barbados, and from 1938 to 1941 Governor of Tanganyika, both terms noted for reform. On 10 September 1941 he became the colony's 21st Governor, also holding the post of Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Hong Kong. Soon after taking office he faced the Pacific War and strengthened defence and civil-defence preparations. On 8 December Japanese forces invaded Hong Kong; after eighteen days of fighting he surrendered the colony unconditionally to Japan at the Peninsula Hotel on Christmas Day 1941, the Black Christmas, and the territory entered three years and eight months of Japanese occupation while he was held as a prisoner of war, first in Hong Kong and later on the mainland. During that period Hong Kong's population fell from about 1.6 million to about 600,000, and housing and commerce were badly damaged. On 1 May 1946, after the occupation ended, he returned as Governor — the only governor in Hong Kong's history to serve both before the fall of the colony and after its liberation, and to hold the post twice — and the Legislative Council resumed the same day. He set about rebuilding the administration and dealing with post-war problems of food, housing and public order; with the population rebounding quickly, he introduced food rationing, stabilised prices, tackled unemployment and public order, restored civil government and rebuilt the police and the judiciary. In August that year he proposed the Young Plan, which would have replaced the Urban Council with a more representative municipal council — two-thirds elected, one-third appointed, with half its members Chinese — to devolve power to residents; after consultation the plan lapsed in 1949 and was formally abandoned by London in 1952, and his successor Alexander Grantham did not support the reform. His term ended on 17 May 1947 and he retired, succeeded by Grantham; he died on 12 May 1974. Educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, he joined the Ceylon civil service in 1909 and rose to Principal Assistant Colonial Secretary. After the fall of Hong Kong he was held as a Japanese prisoner of war from December 1941 until August 1945. He retired to England and died there on 12 May 1974, aged 87.
Mark Young witnessed Hong Kong's passage from occupation to liberation and remains the only Governor to have served both before and after the fall of the colony. The Young Plan he proposed after his return, which would have created a municipal council with elected members, was never implemented but was the first fairly complete scheme for council reform in post-war Hong Kong. Its shelving delayed political reform in the territory by many years. His work in rebuilding the administration and restoring food rationing and public order after the war laid the groundwork for Hong Kong's recovery.
Achievements
- 1941 · Surrendered Hong Kong to Japan at the Peninsula Hotel on 25 December and was later held as a prisoner of war.
- 1946 · Returned as Governor, the Legislative Council resumed on 1 May, and he proposed the Young Plan.
- 1947 · Left office at the end of his term, succeeded by Alexander Grantham.