The son of Reverend Robert Young, the Vicar of St Mark's in Carterton, he was educated at Nelson College and after further study began practice as a dentist.

[1] His history of military service began in 1898 when he joined the New Zealand Volunteer Forces, serving in the Amuri Mounted Rifles (which was subsequently absorbed into the Canterbury Yeomanry Cavalry).

[2] Following his marriage to Florence Ward in 1899 he settled in Marton and began service with the Royal Rifles, rising to the rank of captain in 1910 before the unit was incorporated into the new 7th (Wellington-West Coast) Regiment in 1911.

[1] This vessel was one of twelve troop ships of the main body of the NZEF escorted in convoy by Allied warships, which stopped at Hobart, Albany and Colombo before arriving at the Suez Canal on 1 December 1914.

[6] On return from the field the battalion resumed its training, until the newly formed New Zealand and Australian Division departed for the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in late April 1915.

His 9th (Hawke's Bay) Company moved up Walker's Ridge and defended positions at the Nek from continual Ottoman attacks, in what has been described as some of the severest fighting during the first day of the landings.

[18] He retained command of the brigade for the remainder of the war and saw further action at the Battle of Bapaume[19] and in the push to the Hindenburg Line which contributed to German capitulation in November 1918.

[3] After his return to New Zealand, Young was appointed Honorary Aide de Camp to the Governor General in 1920 and served as Commander of the Canterbury Military District until 1921.

He remained in this senior role until March 1931 when he retired, moving with his wife to Pohangia to assist their son on his sheep and cattle farm, before finally settling in Ōtaki.

[3] His task was to prepare and supervise a system of training sufficiently disciplined and thorough to create an "additional line of national defence of real potential value, and to hold the allegiance of men who have no spare time to give to mere paradings".

A well attended service was initially held in Ōtaki, before his coffin was taken by hearse to Thorndon, Wellington, where it was transferred to a gun-carriage and draped with the New Zealand flag in a funeral with full military honours.