Nicholas Young was a British cabin boy aboard the Endeavour during Captain James Cook's first voyage of discovery. In 1769, Cook named the headland Young Nick's Head in Poverty Bay, New Zealand after him.
In The Remarkable Story of Andrew Swan, it is stated that Young hailed from Greenock, on the Clyde.
Bronze statue of "Young Nick" at Waikanae Beach, Gisborne.
First voyage of James Cook
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
Earl of Pembroke, later HMS Endeavour, leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768. By Thomas Luny, dated 1790
View of the Endeavour's watering place in the Bay of Good Success, Tierra del Fuego, with natives. Alexander Buchan, January 1769.
Māori war canoe with triangle sail drawn by Herman Spöring during Cook's first voyage to New Zealand in 1769
Manuscript nautical chart of the North Island of New Zealand, prepared during James Cook's first voyage, 1768–1771