Dr George Young, c 1726-1803

My maternal grandmother was the story teller of our family. Her grandchildren assembled around her dining table every Saturday to hear her stories of nineteenth century characters, living lives far more exciting than our existence as early ‘babyboomers’, growing up on the suburban fringes of post-war Sydney. Only one story was documented, the story of Maria Isabella Flockton, née Cruikshank, my grandmother’s great-grandmother. Just before Maria died in 1896 she wrote a Statement, which today we’d call a brief memoir, and it's in our family's possession.

In part, Maria said she was born on the Island of St Vincent in 1810, was brought to Hammersmith near London as a baby, and was raised in England by family friends after her parents’ early deaths on St Vincent. When she reached her majority she inherited two plantations on St Vincent, ‘Mesopotamia’ and ‘Cummacrabou’. Her exotic story stirred my childhood imagination.

Five decades went by before Maria re-entered my life with a vengeance when I was bitten by the bug of family history. Maria stood out as the most unusual of my ancestors. Thanks to her Statement, I hadn’t had to work hard at finding her, but why was she born on St Vincent?

Map of Caribbean, from an old website, scubaSVG.com

The whole notion of that small island in the Caribbean was romantic. James Michener had found it so, proved by his best-selling book Caribbean. I was intrigued by the notion that Maria was a sugar heiress. The less said about that, the better. By Australian standards, she definitely qualified as an unusual forebear. Following her story led me to an even more unusual forebear, her trail-blazing grandfather Dr George Young.

Britain’s Seven Years’ War against the French commenced in 1756, soon after George Young graduated as a Master of Arts from the University of Glasgow in 1754.[1] In 1758 he was in Canada with the British Army’s 48th Regiment of Foot, recorded on 27 July as an Apothecary's Mate.[2] The Regiment had long been in America but was then engaged in the renowned siege of Louisbourg, in today's Nova Scotia.[3] The Regiment then participated in the capture of Quebec in 1759.[4] In 1762, as Surgeon to the Regiment, George Young was part of Lord Albemarle's Expedition to Havana, Cuba, where Caribbean-born Dr Young dealt with health issues more familiar to him, the scourge of malaria and yellow fever.[5]

The Seven Year’s War ended in 1763 and George Young’s brother William Young (soon Sir William), who had attended the University of Cambridge[6], was appointed to head the Commission that would implement the settlement terms of the Treaty of Paris on the island of St Vincent. The island, newly ceded to Britain, had formerly been the home of French plantation settlers, a small native population of ‘Yellow Carib’ Indians and a large group of ‘Black Caribs’, descended from shipwrecked and escapee African slaves.

Both were the sons of Dr William Young, a Scot and a supporter of Charles Stuart against the English, and a participant in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. In 1716 he had relocated permanently to Antigua, where he became a prominent physician and landowner.[7] Caribbean-born William was born in 1725 and George around 1726.[8] Their mother Margaret was the widow of George Nanton of Antigua, with several children from her first marriage.[9] In his will, Sir William Young referred to his [half] sister Margaret Nanton of Antigua and his sister Mary Hartman of St Croix.[10]

On 2 February 1764 Young was granted MD status by his alma mater, seemingly based on his impressive practical experience in the field of battle.[11] His appointment to the Garrison of St Vincent as Surgeon at its military hospital was dated 27 February 1764.[12]

On St Vincent George Young interacted with General Robert Melville, the first Governor of the Southern Caribbean. Melville, a couple of years older than Young, had also studied medicine so they shared much in common.[13] Young described Melville as 'a lover of botany and a man disposed to encourage every undertaking that may tend to public utility'.[14]

Melville was a member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London and the two men discussed the Society’s offer of 1762, to anyone interested in establishing a botanic garden in the North American colonies, of a 'premium' [reward] for articles raised in those gardens which would benefit the trade and commerce of Britain.[15] Recognizing Young’s skill and perseverance as a horticulturalist, Melville procured a six-acre plot of land for a garden at St Vincent (later expanded to twenty acres), provided Young would take care of it.[16]

Thus, in 1765, about one mile from Kingstown, St Vincent, Dr George Young commenced an important agricultural and medical science experiment. An astonishing number of books have since been written about the botanic garden at St Vincent.

Kingstown, St Vincent
An Historical Account of the Island of St. Vincent, by Charles Shephard, esq. (1830)

Its initial focus was ‘to provide medicinal plants for the military as well as to improve the life and economy of the colony’.[17] Young was instructed by Melville to ‘get as much information as possibly you can from all quarters relative to the indigenous medicines. It is against your craft but would be highly beneficial to the public and do yourself honour. And I should think for this purpose physical practitioners of the country, natives of experience, and even old Caribs and slaves who have dealt in cures might be worth taking notice of.[18]

George Young was a contemporary of the famous botanists Joseph Banks from England and Daniel Solander from Sweden. Between 1765 and 1772, whilst Banks and Solander were planning and undertaking their famous Southern Hemisphere voyages of discovery with Captain James Cook, George Young worked hard on the Island of St Vincent. As well as his medical duties he supervised the work in the Garden undertaken by negro slaves and began building its plant collection. Visiting naval vessels and East India Company ships brought plants from afar.[19] He corresponded with Solander.[20] He exchanged plants with the French General de Bouille, a keen botanist currently stationed on Martinique.[21] The businessman and distinguished British naturalist John Ellis, agent for Dominica from 1771 and the man credited with designing a system for safely transporting seedlings on long sea voyages,[22] made a list in 1773 of the plants growing in the Botanic Garden at St Vincent.[23]

During this period George Young married, somewhere, a widow named Sarah with a son named Robert Serres who was likely a teenager.[24] Several years older than George, she was already aged around forty-three when an infant named George Young was buried at St Vincent on 8 June 1767. Another George was mentioned in his father's Will as if he was the first-born, and his birthplace is assumed to have been St Vincent around 1768. Son William was christened on St Vincent on 1 May 1771 and Sarah was christened at St George’s Kingstown on 30 April 1772 as children of Dr Young.[25]

Of his work at the Garden, Young wrote 'For the first two or three years, little else was done, but clearing and fencing in the ground', using one of the Society’s desired target plant, logwood, to fence the garden and divide its plots.[26] He attempted to procure and grow other desired plants listed by the Society, successfully growing safflower, and he made a number of field trips to obtain specimens, including to Dominica, also Guadeloupe in 1770 and Grenada in 1771 to obtain cinnamon plants and seeds.[27] But unfortunately, although he succeeded with specified plants, it was usually after the deadlines set by the Society, due to the difficulties with travel and communication, making him ineligible for the premiums offered, except in the case of cinnamon.

Towards the end of 1772 Young sailed to England, with his letter reporting on his progress to the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in London.[28] He also carried a certificate from the President of the Council of St Vincent verifying that he had ‘seen 140 plants of the Guadeloupe cinnamon trees raised, secured and fenced in and under actual improvement and cultivation in the Island of St Vincent under the care of Mr Young’.[29] He outlined a long list of other plants which he had obtained for the garden and which were successfully growing there.[30] He also mentioned a long list of plants and seeds he planned to take back with him from England for trial in the St Vincent gardens, plus some he would like to obtain from various sites around the world if only the Society would lend its influence to the task.[31]

He reported that Melville met all the expenses of the garden during his term as Governor, but Melville's successors did not, and Young himself had incurred out-of-pocket expenses. Young also paid tribute to contributions made by Mr Adair in London, General Melville and Sir William Young. Dr Young sought the Society’s support in maintaining and properly supporting the Garden: If it is not obtained, I am afraid, it will fall to the ground, after all that has been done. For it is a great chance, whether the surgeon, who may succeed, will have any taste for botany; or whether he will forego his practice among planters and their negroes, to take care of it.[32] His plea fell on deaf ears.

As for the 'rewards' on offer from the Society, rules applied and George Young's eligibility was unclear.  The Society decided to refer the matter to its Committee of Colonies & Trade, which decided at a meeting on 23 December 1772 that George Young, ‘appearing to be a corresponding member of the Society … cannot be entitled to a pecuniary reward which he seems to expect’.[33]

In early January 1773 Young was called before a meeting of that Committee, chaired by the famous Dr Samuel Johnson, and questioned as to his awareness that he had been elected as a corresponding Member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. George replied that he had never heard of being a corresponding Member, although he had occasionally received letters from members. He had never heard, until he came to England, of the clause in the rules of the Society which excluded members from pecuniary awards and entitled them only to honorary medals. The Committee resolved 'that Mr George Young, not having ever received notice of his being elected a corresponding Member from any Officer of the Society; and not being apprized of the Clause abovementioned; it is of the opinion of the Committee that Mr Young is not to be considered as a corresponding Member of the Society.' The Committee of Colonies and Trade further resolved that Young was deserving of a bounty from the Society.[34]

Unaware of that Committee’s resolutions, the Society decided at its committee meeting on the following day to award George Young its gold medal rather than a bounty of fifty guineas.[35] A week later, the Society rejected the notion that George Young was not a corresponding member.[36] At its meeting on 17 February 1773 the Society decided that the inscription on the gold medal was to read ‘George Young, MD, Culture of Cinnamon in St Vincents'.[37]

Young’s presence in London during these deliberations meant that, coincidentally, he was absent from St Vincent during an active engagement by an expeditionary force of the British Army in the First Black Carib War, between September 1772 and February 1773. The Army’s incoming soldiers suffered many deaths through climate stress, illness and food shortages.[38] With his wife and children back on the Island, George Young quickly returned there. On 12 May 1773, the Society in London noted a letter received from George Young in St Vincent, declining the honour of being a corresponding member of the Society.[39]

Having sacrificed his own financial position for almost a decade for the public good, with no future prospect of the burden being lifted, and no doubt feeling unappreciated for his work at the Garden, from 1774 a disappointed George Young turned his primary focus elsewhere.

Still technically the curator of the Garden, he now devoted himself more fully to medicine, to his young family, and to the task of managing his 'Mesopotamia' and 'Cummacrabou' plantations on St Vincent, both located in Charlotte Parish but not listed in John Byres’ plan of the island in 1776, so presumably acquired after that date.[40] By now his brother was Sir William and, benefitting from his perks as a colonial official, William was one of the biggest landowners on St Vincent, with many places on the island named after him. The two modest estates ultimately held by George Young were possibly acquired due to his brother’s influence. ‘Mesopotamia’ (of unknown acreage) was in the fertile Maniaquia Valley northeast of Kingstown, near Monckton’s land. ‘Cummacrabou’ of 200 acres[41] was further to the north, close to the frontier with the Carib territory, which was north of the 1773 treaty line set in 1773 after the First Black Carib War.[42] Possibly part of the land once controlled by the Black Caribs, George Young’s plantations then produced sugar, rum, arrowroot and cocoa, sent to London each year and sold in the English markets.[43]

John Byres' Map of St Vincent, 1776
Wikipedia Commons

With the American War of Independence underway from 1776, diverting British attention from the Caribbean, the French pounced and Dr George Young was a member of the Council of St Vincent when it capitulated to the French in June 1779.[44] British forces retreated to nearby St Lucia, where Young was on the army payroll as Physician.[45] For a time the French looked after the Garden but local farmers on St Vincent began encroaching on the site, growing cotton and tobacco, resulting in the discontinuation of the garden under its original plan, and a hurricane in October 1780 wreaked further destruction on Young’s creation.[46]

On 25 December 1783, after the American War ended, the ageing George was put onto half-pay, as was the custom for Army and Naval officers during peace time and he returned to live on St Vincent.[47] He was accompanied by Alexander Anderson, formerly Young's assistant on St Lucia. In 1785 Joseph Banks approved Young’s recommendation that Anderson, several decades younger than Young, become the garden’s new director.[48]

Despite its recent years of neglect, in 1785 Anderson recorded a variety of 348 plants growing in St Vincent Botanic Garden, 31 of these holding commercial interest, his heritage from Young.[49] Anderson was charged with the responsibility of the garden's restoration. Unlike Young, an Army doctor and part-time curator, Anderson was able to work full-time on the Garden project, this time with the full financial backing of the British government. An excellent networker, Anderson soon developed his own reputation as a renowned Scottish botanist and gained much of the credit for the success of the garden.

On 6 April 1788 the Honourable George Young, still a member of the Council of St Vincent, was present and witnessed a Codicil added to the will of his brother two days before Sir William died on the island.[50] The brothers seemed very different people, with George a much humbler man.

Young was still on St Vincent when the naval captain William Bligh’s ship arrived in St Vincent in January 1793, delivering to Anderson the long-awaited breadfruit seedlings.[51] It was the culmination of a project underway since the early 1770s, and interrupted by the famous ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ in 1789. Ned Young, one of the mutineers on H.M.S. Bounty, shares DNA links with the Young family of St Vincent and appears to have been a ‘natural’ son of either William or George Young.[52]

With war renewed against the French in 1793, George Young reappeared briefly in October of that year and again in 1794 as a physician to the West Indies forces on active duty in the Caribbean.[53]

During the Second Black Carib War of 1795-96, his plantations suffered minor damage during the vicious rebellion against the British, but his sons were now in charge.[54] By 1795 George Young had retired to live in England, at Queen St, Hammersmith, near the treasured plants he’d once sent from St Vincent to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

He died at Hammersmith on 11 March 1803, ‘aged 76, and physician to His Majesty's hospitals in the West Indies’.[55] His age indicated his intelligence and lifestyle choices, since most Europeans living in the Caribbean at that time succumbed early to the excesses of alcohol and tropical diseases. His cause of death is not known, but an item in London’s Times newspaper on 12 March referred to the influenza epidemic currently raging, affecting virtually every household.[56]

His will of August 1802 named three children, George, William and Sarah, his sons living in St Vincent and his daughter living with her parents in England.[57] His sons were in trouble for ‘freeloading’ off their father’s efforts and properties and were enjoined to pay their mother Sarah an annual income of one hundred pounds sterling. After her father’s death, Sarah returned to St Vincent where, in 1808, she married a merchant named James Cruikshank.[58] William (who became a doctor like his father and grandfather) and Sarah, born on St Vincent in 1771 and 1772 respectively, were both buried there in 1820, while eldest son George was buried on St Vincent in 1823.[59] All three were in their late forties or early fifties.

Their mother Sarah died at Hammersmith in 1814, aged ninety.[60] She signed her will of May 1812 with her mark, perhaps incapacitated by age.[61] She left her estate to her son Robert Serres, a shoemaker of Hammersmith, and her adult granddaughter Ann Serres (presumably the relatives with whom Sarah was now living), except for a gold watch, two silver tables and ten teaspoons which were to be passed on to Sarah’s infant granddaughter Maria Cruikshanks [sic], once Maria turned sixteen.

With family members dying young without legal heirs, granddaughter Maria Isabella Cruikshank eventually inherited George Young's 'Mesopotamia' and 'Cummacrabou' plantations and a small slave workforce. Both properties were sold after 1833 by Maria’s husband Webster Flockton: ‘Mesopotamia’ to William Sayer and ‘Cummacrabou’ to an unknown buyer.[62] Years later, Maria's granddaughter Margaret Flockton inherited George's passion. An international award for scientific botanical artists was established in her name in 2004, honouring her work over many years from 1901 at Sydney's Royal Botanic Garden.[63] My book 'Margaret Flockton: A Fragrant Memory' was published by Wakefield Press in 2016. George Young's name and achievements should not be forgotten either.

NOTE: Original post substantially updated on 4 Jun 2026

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[1] Young, George. M.A.1754, M.D.1764. ‘Practiced Medicine and Surgery several years in the Army’ [Univ. Minute, 2nd February, 1764], Sourced by Irene Ferguson, Assistant to Archivist at University of Edinburgh, from Roll of Graduates of the University of Glasgow 1727-1897

[2] Drew, Robert, Editor, Commissioned Officers in the Medical Services of the British Army, 1660-1960, (The Wellcome Historical Medical Library, London, 1968), p 29

[3] Wikipedia website, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/48th_(Northamptonshire)_Regiment_of_Foot, accessed 4 Dec 2011

[4] Ibid

[5] Drew, op cit, p 38, and Wikipedia website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Havana

[6] Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part 1, p 495, and Royal Society website, https://catalogues.royalsociety.org/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Persons&id=NA5053

[7] Ibid

[8] Parish Records, Hammersmith, Film X048/003, London Metropolitan Archives give Dr George Young’s age at death in March 1803 as 76 years

[9] Louise Wilson shares Ancestry DNA matches with the descendants of Margaret’s son Henry Nanton (born c 1715), of her son George Young (born c 1726), and also with the descendants of Ned Young, 1764-1800, a mutineer on the Bounty in 1789.

[10] ‘Society Minutes, 1754- ‘, Administrative Records of Royal Society of Arts, London

[11] Roll of Graduates of the University of Glasgow 1727-1897, op cit

[12] Drew, op cit, p 38

[13] Melville’s entry in Forner Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1783-2002, on website https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf

[14] Dossie, Robert, Memoirs of Agriculture and Other Economical Arts, (3 vols, London, 1768-82), Article IX, p 197

[15] Dossie, op cit, p 196

[16] Richard A Howard, ‘The St Vincent Botanic Garden – The Early Years’, p 12, on JSTOR website https://www.jstor.org/stable/42955177

[17] Ibid

[18] Ibid

[19] Ibid

[20] Dossie, op cit, pp 201-202

[21] Young, George, (-1803), on JSTOR website, https://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/al.ap.person.bm000037027

[22] Royal College of Surgeons of England website, https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/library-and-publications/library/blog/botany-in-the-age-of-empire/

[23] Ellis, John, ‘Some Additional Observations on the Method of Preserving Seeds from Foreign Parts, for the Benefit of our American Colonies, with an Account of the Garden at St Vincent under the Care of Dr George Young, (London, Bowyer) 15 pages, 4to pamph, 1773. A botanical work. A continuation of his “Directions … ‘, listed on https://donmitchellcbeqc.blogspot.com/2024/03/mitchells-west-indian-bibliography-12th.html The list is reprinted in Howard, op cit, p 14.

[24] Will of ‘Sarah Young, Widow of Hammersmith’, PROB 11/800/77, Date 5 Dec 1814, National Archives, UK mentions her son Robert Serres, a shoemaker of Hammersmith and his adult daughter Ann Serres

[25] Parish records of St. George Parish, Church of England, St. Vincent, West Indies/ transcribed by Richard A. and Lillian J. Ross, Book, 4 vols, FamilySearch Library

[26] Dossie, op cit, pp 197-8

[27] Dossie, op cit, pp 198-199

[28] ‘Dr Young’s Letter on the Botanical Garden established in the Island of Saint Vincent’, is reprinted in Dossie, op cit, pp 196-205

[29] ‘Society Minutes, 1754- ‘, Administrative Records of Royal Society of Arts, London, including Committee of Colonies & Trade Minutes, op cit, p 2

[30] Dossie, op cit, p 200

[31] Dossie, op cit, pp 200-203

[32] Dossie, op cit, p 204

[33] Committee of Colonies & Trade Minutes, op cit, p 2

[34] Committee of Colonies & Trade Minutes, op cit, p 3

[35] Society Minutes, op cit, pp 40-41

[36] Society Minutes, op cit, p 42

[37] Society Minutes, op cit, p 57

[38] ‘First Carib War’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Carib_War

[39] Society Minutes, op cit, p 92

[40] Shephard, Charles, An Historical Account of the Island of Saint Vincent, (London, 1831) Appendix XX, pp A57-A65, reprinted by Hobo Jungle Press, 2013, online at https://www.hobojungle.org/index_htm_files/Historical%20Account.pdf

[41] Shephard, op cit, Appendix VI, p A5

[42] Copyright does not permit use of a helpful illustrative map on p 243 of Peter Hulme,  ‘Colonial Encounters – Europe and the Native Caribbean, 1492-1797’, (Methuen, London, 1986)

[43] Flockton, Maria Isabella, ‘Statement’, 1894, 12 page handwritten document in Flockton Family Collection

[44] Reference yet to come

[45] Drew, op cit, p 38

[46] Naro, Nancy Priscilla S, Imperial Palms over Colonial Gardens, on website http://www.sg.inter.edu/revista-ciscla/volume29/naro.pdf

[47] Drew, op cit, p 38

[48] Howard, op cit, p 15

[49] Howard, op cit, pp 16-17

[50] Will of ‘Sir William Young, of Delaford, Buckinghamshire’, PROB 11/1168/250, Date 30 Jul 1788, National Archives, UK

[51] Howard, op cit, p 18

[52] Louise Wilson, ‘Mutiny on the Bounty - A Genealogical Mystery’, 30 Mar 2025, on https://flocktonfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2025/03/mutiny-on-bounty-genealogical-mystery.html

[53] Drew, op cit, p 38

[54] ‘The Young Collection of Manuscripts’, Mss Wind.t.1, Vol 5, p 3, at Rhodes House Library, Oxford

[55] ‘Gentleman's Magazine’, Vol 73, Part 1, 1803, p 272

[56] 'England, Middlesex, Parish Registers, 1539-1988', FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org), Dr George Young, Burial, 17 Mar 1803, aged 77 years.

[57] Will of ‘George Young, formerly physician of Hammersmith, Middlesex’, PROB 11/1405/179, Date 21 Feb 1804, National Archives, UK

[58] Parish records of St. George Parish, Church of England, St. Vincent, West Indies/ transcribed by Richard A. and Lillian J. Ross, Book, 4 vols, FamilySearch Library

[59] Ibid

[60] 'England, Middlesex, Parish Registers, 1539-1988', FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org), Sarah Young, Burial, 1 May 1814, aged 90 years, Hamlet of Hammersmith.

[61] Will of ‘Sarah Young, Widow of Hammersmith’, PROB 11/800/77, Date 5 Dec 1814, National Archives, UK

[62] Flockton, Maria Isabella, ‘Statement’, op cit

[63] ‘Margaret Flockton’, on website of Botanic Gardens of Sydney, https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/our-science/our-collections/botanical-illustration/margaret-flockton