Private Henry Young
Number: 34503
Company: 99th (Irish) Company, 8th Battalion, Second Contingent
ENLISTMENT
Date: 5 March 1901
Place: Belfast
Age: 26 years stated on enlistment. (Born on 22 March 1873 at 45 Silver Grove Street, Belfast.)
Trade or calling: Barman
Place of birth: In the Parish of Belfast, in or near the Town of Belfast, in the County of Antrim
Family: Married. Wife Charlotte Young (nee Kidd), shopkeeper, of 27 Hartwell Street, Belfast. Married on 13 May 1896 at St Thomas's Church of Ireland Parish Church in Belfast. The couple had nine children over the next sixteen years. Father John Young, photographer (dec. 1899), mother Isabella Young, nee Copeland.
Previous military service: No
Description: Height 5' 5 1/4". Complexion fresh, eyes brown, hair black. Mole on abdomen right side; scar on limber(?) spine.
Religion: Church of England
ACTIVE SERVICE
Date to South Africa: 13 April 1901
Date home: 1 September 1902
Service medal, clasps and other awards: Queen's South Africa Medal. Cape Colony, 1901, 1902 clasps.
DISCHARGE
Date: 7 September 1902
Place: United Kingdom
Reason for discharge: The termination of his engagement
On 25 January 1902 the Belfast Weekly Telegraph published a letter written by Young from South Africa, dated 28 November 1901, together with a sketch of a photograph he had sent:
As it has come under our notice that there are some troopers in our company writing home telling their friends that so many men of the 99th Company were sent off the column owing to their riding being not up to the mark, we wish these people not to believe the one half of what is told them. We were sent into a detail camp off the column to await remounts, as our horses had sore backs. Then we were ordered to Schoombee Bridge to do guard, as it was a most particular post on the line in the heart of the field of operations, near the Zeenberg and Stormberg Mountains. We were not sent to blockhouses for not being fit for columns, as eveyone here - including General French and Colonel Coddington - knows we can both ride and shoot, perhaps better than some of those who are writing to their friends about us. These know very well that Lord Ennismore, our former captain, applied to General French to get us on the column; and our present captain has also applied, but without success. We have done more fighting here than those who are writing to their friends have done on the column. On one occasion, the night of the 17th September, we had two wounded - Wm. Young and G. W. Stevenson, but they are all right again and still with us. There is no retreat with us, and we have got to fight to the last man, and if we were no use we would not be attached to such a good corps as the Coldstream Guards, also mentioned in General French in despatches. The reason we are not in column is because there are few who could to the work here better than the few boys of the 99th Company that are here.
At the time of the 1911 Census, Young was working as a shipyard labourer and living at 7 Brussels Street, Belfast, with his wife Charlotte and their four surviving children (another would be born a year later). Charlotte died on 18 January 1914. They were living at 31 Vicarage Street at the time, Henry working as a butler.
In World War 1 he served in the North Irish Horse and the Royal Flying Corps. Details of this service and his later life can be seen here.
This page last updated 24 April 2026.