Rosalind W. Young Scholarship
Rosalind Watson Young was born in Huntingdon, Quebec in 1874, the daughter of Reverend James Watson, MA, DD. She was educated at Huntingdon Academy where she won a scholarship that enabled her toenroll in McGill University. She received a Bachelor of Arts with first class honours in Natural Science, receiving the Sir William Logan Medal on graduation in 1985.
She came to Victoria in 1896 and was the first woman with a university degree to receive an appointment from the School Board. She taught in two local schools and then was appointed to the faculty of Victoria College, where she taught the first class of students. In 1901, her thesis Geology and Mineral Resources of Texada Island earned for her an MA from McGill.
Her travels by boat up and down the coast of B.C., by horse and buggy through the Cariboo, by dog team through northern B.C., and by railway through the Kootenays provided a wealth of information for her Geography of British Columbia, which was published in 1904 and used as a textbook for many years in BC schools.
Her husband was Dr. Henry Esson Young, Minister of Education from 1907 to 1916, and with him she shared the responsibility of wording the Act that established the University of British Columbia. She had four children, and through them retained her interest in education and in the local schools.
In 1961 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the first convocation in 1961 of Victoria College. She was the first president of the University Women's Club of Victoria, and the Club honoured her by establishing, on its 50th anniversary in 1958, a scholarship in her name. She was active in the University Extension Association.
At her death on February 12, 1962, Dr. N.A.M. MacKenzie, President of the University of British Columbia, wrote of Mrs. Young, "Her interest in the progress and welfare of higher education in this province over so many years is something that we will all remember."