Mr. James Mason Young

James Young, 60, was a Scottish-Canadian and Presbyterian entreprenuer residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, married to Georgina Ann Vernon. Their son James was fighting on Western Front and had been injured in March 1915. The elder James and his wife Georgina booked Lusitania to be at their son’s hospital bedside. James and Georgina Young were lost when the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20 on 7 May 1915. Neither of their bodies were recovered or identified.

Life

James Young was a British subject of Scottish-Canadian extraction and was also a Presbyterian. Young co-founded of the Hamilton Cotton Company in 1882. Young’s business made him one of Hamilton’s high-profile entrepreneurs and a contributor to the lakeside city’s industrial growth.

James and Georgina had two sons, James and Alan. The elder James believed that a military education would instill discipline in them and sent them to the Royal Military College, which had been founded in 1874. The younger James Young graduated in 1911 and went on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

When the Great War broke out, the younger James received commission as an officer in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, serving with the 3rd Artillery Brigade. He was wounded on the Western Front in March 1915. His parents, James and Georgina, booked passage aboard Lusitania to be by his hospital bedside. James, Sr. and Georgina booked ticket 866 for Lusitania and were in cabin B-53. Both James and Georgina Young were lost in the Lusitania sinking. Neither of their bodies were recovered or identified.

The younger James was invalided out of his military service and returned to Canada in 1916. Following the war, he and his brother Alan managed the family firm. One of James, Jr.’s sons, Doug, was a Major and Unit Deployment Officer for Juno Beach killed in action in the D-Day Allied invasion of Normandy on 8 June 1944.

Links of interest

McMaster Alumni Association – John Douglas Young

References
“John Douglas Young (1916 – 1944)” McMaster Alumni Association.  McMaster University.  Web. 16 August 2011. <http://www.mcmaster.ca/ua/alumni/honourRoll/douglasyoung.htm>.