George Garrett (13 August 1896
Seacombe – 28 May 1966)
was a British
labour activist
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers.
In some unions, the orga ...
, 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
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers.
In some unions, the orga ...
.
Garrett was a merchant seaman, writer, playwright and founder member of the
Unity Theatre, Liverpool
The Unity Theatre is a theatre in Liverpool, England.
Formed by directors Gerry Dawson and Edgar Criddle as the Merseyside Left Theatre in the 1930s, the theatre became known as the Merseyside Unity Theatre in 1944. The company was known for be ...
. 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
Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of pr ...
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.
[
]
See also
* James Hanley (novelist)
*Proletarian fiction
Proletarian literature refers here to the literature created by left-wing writers mainly for the class-conscious proletariat. Though the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' states that because it "is essentially an intended device of revolution", it is ...
Further reading
*''The Collected George Garrett'', Michael Murphy (Ed.), 1999, Trent Editions,
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garrett, George
1896 births
1966 deaths
Industrial Workers of the World members
Proletarian literature
Deaths from cancer in England
Place of death missing
Trade unionists from Liverpool