Walter Young was born in 1933. He received a BA in Honours History and English at UBC in 1955. He went to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He gained a further BA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics in 1957 and an MA in 1962. On his return to Canada, Young taught political science in Manitoba and Toronto. He then returned to UBC in 1962 as an instructor in political science. Young received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1965; his thesis was titled The National CCF: Political Party and Political Movement. Young remained at UBC until 1973 when he moved to the University of Victoria as Chairman of the Department of Political Science. While at UBC, Young was very active in faculty and administrative affairs. He worked with several committees, was co-chairman of the new Arts I programme and was deeply involved in collecting materials for the Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection for the UBC Library Special Collections Division. He continued his writing career during this period, completing two books and many articles and book reviews. His primary scholarly interest was Canadian socialism. Young wrote books and papers on M.J. Coldwell, the CCF, the NDP, and socialism as a whole. He was also a founding member of the NDP, worked actively for the Ontario NDP while living in Toronto, and was vice-president of British Columbia's NDP in the mid-1960s. He was involved primarily in research, advertising, and policy-making. Young was also founder and co-editor of BC Studies and founded and directed the BC Legislative Internship Programme. He died in 1984.