Commander George Young was born in 1785, the son of Surgeon Alexander Young, R.N. Entering the Royal Navy in 1808 as a Midshipman aboard the Prison Ship H.M.S. Vryheid, lying in the River Medway, he went on to serve in the Sceptre on the Channel and East India Stations. Advanced to Lieutenant, he removed to the Vesuvius in the Baltic and, in February 1809, to the Bermuda, aboard which
latter ship he served as Senior Lieutenant in the Walcheren Expedition. Transferring to the Lion in 1810, Young served in the Java
operations, and in early 1812, as a Lieutenant in the Scipion, off the Cape of Good Hope and afterwards, in Sir Edward Pellew's Fleet, at the actions off Toulon on 5.11.1813 and 13.2.1814. His final regular appointment was aboard the Snap in the North Sea, and he was
subsequently employed as an Agent for Transports Afloat. Young was advanced to Commander in 1846.