MISSIONARY'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 137, 11 June 1940, Page 11

MISSIONARY'S DEATH

A SPLENDID SERVICE

The death has occurred at Killara, New South Wales, in her 84th year, of Miss Florence S. H. Young, who for more than 50 years was a missionary 'in Queensland, China, and the Solomon Islands, states an exchange. Miss Young, who was born at Motueka, Nelson, was the daughter of Mr. Henry Young. A cousin, Sir William Mackworth Young, was Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab.

After being educated in New Zealand and England in 1882, Miss Young went to keep house for two brothers who owned a sugar plantation in North Queensland. Starting with a weekly Bible class for the South Sea Island labourers, she founded the Queensland Kanaka Mission, an interdenominational movement which spread over the whole sugar district of North Queensland and was responsible for converting thousands of natives.

Leaving this work in other hands, l\|iss Young went to China in 1891 under the China Inland Mission, and after going through the Boxer riots returned to Sydney in 1902. When the Kanakas were repatriat >d by the Queensland Government, Miss Young and her brothers turned their efforts to the British Solomon Islands.

Till a few years ago, Miss Young made frequent visits to the Solomon Islands and directed the South Seas Evangelical Mission till a few weeks before her death, when she handed over the leadership to her niece, Miss Kathleen Deck. Miss Young published an account of her missionary work in "Pearls From the Pacific. 1' In addition to the members of the Deck family, who have long assisted her in mission work, Miss Young has relatives in Nelson and Auckland.