George Garrett (activist)

Not to be confused with George Garrett (poet).

George Garrett (13 August 1896 – 28 May 1966) was a British labour activist, writer and actor. He was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, and notable working class writer.

Biography

Garrett was born in Seacombe, Cheshire, England, on 13 August 1896. His father, Samuel Garrett, was the son of Irish Protestant migrants. His mother, Catherine McAndrew, was the daughter of Irish Catholic migrants. After marrying in Liverpool in 1891 his Liverpool-born parents moved to Seacombe. Garrett lived most of his life in Liverpool where he is remembered as a labour activist.

Garrett was a merchant seaman, writer, playwright and founder member of the Unity Theatre, Liverpool. He was a radical activist who travelled the world and wrote a series of short stories, plays and pieces of reportage about hunger and unemployment in the 1930s. He was a syndicalist who joined the Industrial Workers of the World when he lived in New York for three years, and was influenced by the Irish American Playwright Eugene O'Neill.

He died of throat cancer on 28 May 1966.

Memorial to Garrett at 54 St James Street, Liverpool

See also

• James Hanley (novelist)
• Proletarian fiction

Further reading

• The Collected George Garrett, Michael Murphy (Ed.), 1999, Trent Editions, ISBN 9780905488486
• Ten Years on the Parish: The Autobiography and Letters of George Garrett, 2017, Mike Morris, Tony Wailey and Andrew Davies, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 9781786940568