Profile

YOUNG, George Mair
(Service number 6/1765)

Aliases
First Rank	Private	Last Rank

Birth

Date	15/01/1890	Place of Birth	Newton, Ayrshire, Scotland

Enlistment Information

Date	7 January 1915	Age	24 years 11 months
Address at Enlistment	Russell Square, Timaru
Occupation	Labourer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	James YOUNG (father), 36 East Main Street, Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland
Religion	Presbyterian
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	New Zealand Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	3rd Reinforcements
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	Canterbury Infantry Battalion
Date	14 February 1915
Transport	Maunganui or Tahiti or Aparima
Embarked From	Wellington	Destination	Suez, Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns	Egyptian; Balkan (Gallipoli)
Service Medals	1914-1915 Star; British War Medal; Victory Medal
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	3 March 1916	Reason	Medically unfit for Active Service

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

August 1915 - bullet wound left shoulder

Post-war Occupations

Linesman

Death

Date		Age
Place of Death
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

George Mair Young was born on 15 January 1890 at Newton, Ayrshire, Scotland, the fourth of the five sons of James and Agnes (née Hamilton) Young. He was at home with his parents and brothers at Ayr in 1891 and at Loudon, Ayrshire, in 1901. By 1914 he was a labourer in New Zealand. Enlisting on 7 January 1915 at Trentham, he gave his address as Russell Square, Timaru, and named his father as next-of-kin – James Young, 36 East Main Street, Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland. He was a labourer for Dalgety and Co, Timaru, single and Presbyterian.

Private G. M. Young embarked with the Canterbury Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Reinforcements, departing from Wellington for Suez, Egypt, on 14 February 1915. George Young suffered a bullet wound to his left shoulder in August 1915. He embarked for New Zealand on 23 September 1915, invalided, returning by the “Tofua” which arrived at Port Chalmers at the end of October [26 Oct 1915]. He was discharged on 3 March 1916, medically unfit for Active Service. For his service in Egypt and the Balkans, he was awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. In 1919 George Mair Young was a linesman at Wanganui. What became of him? A online family tree gives a death year of 1952 but with no detail or sources. His brother Thomas who served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers died of wounds in Palestine on 8 November 1917. George’s maternal uncle, Thomas Hamilton, who was born at Darvel, Ayrshire, came to New Zealand in 1891 and married here. He was in South Canterbury from 1899. Both he and his wife are buried at Waimate, in 1940 and 1968 respectively.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [22 November 2022]; 1891, 1901 Scotland Census returns (ancestry.com.au) [22 November 2022]; Evening Post, 17 August 1915, Waimate Daily Advertiser, 18 August 1915, Ashburton Guardian, 20 October 1915 (Papers Past) [20 December 2014; 23 November 2022]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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