Educated at Marlborough, Young began rock climbing shortly before his first term at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Classics and won the Chancellor's Medal for English Verse two years running.

[3] During the Edwardian Period, and up until the outbreak of hostilities heralding World War I, Young made several new and difficult ascents in the Alps, including noted routes on the Zermatt Breithorn on Monte Rosa (the "Younggrat"), the west ridge of the Gspaltenhorn, on the west face of the Weisshorn, and a dangerous and rarely repeated route on the south face of the Täschhorn.

He was elected president of the Climbers' Club in 1913, and he organised the Pen-y-Pass gatherings that propelled the advancement of rock climbing and included such technical luminaries as J. M. Archer Thompson, George Leigh Mallory, Siegfried Herford, John Percy Farrar and Oscar Eckenstein.

These parties, beginning in earnest about 1907, and sometimes reaching sixty men, women and children, flooded the hotel and overflowed into Eckenstein's miner's cabin and various tents.

At the conclusion of the war in 1918 he married Eleanor Winthrop Young (née Slingsby), who helped him return to climbing after his amputation and often accompanied him on expeditions.

[3] Jocelin became a Royal Navy officer and an educator, he founded the Round Square association of schools and was private tutor to Constantine II of Greece.

[3] During World War II, Young was president of the Alpine Club and it was through his efforts that the British Mountaineering Council, the umbrella organisation for climbers in Great Britain, was created in 1945.