Fydell Edmund Garrett

Fydell Edmund Garrett (20 July 1865 – 10 May 1907), also known as Edmund Garrett, was a British publicist, journalist and poet. He was returned as a Member of the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope in 1898 for Victoria East constituency.

Biography

Garrett was born on 20 July 1865, was fourth son of John Fisher Garrett, rector of Elton, Derbyshire, and his second wife, Mary, daughter of Godfrey Gray. His older half siblings included suffragist and designer Rhoda Garrett, who his mother was considered to have ill treated. He was educated at Rossall School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in the summer term of 1887 with a third class in Classics. At the university he was more distinguished at the Cambridge Union, of which he was president in 1887, than in the schools.

On leaving the university Garrett joined the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette. After two years of work in London, he had symptoms of tuberculosis, and was subsequently sent to South Africa for a cure. This led to a temporary remission, and his visit to South Africa in the winter of 1889-90 led to other consequences important to his career.

The next four years were devoted to journalistic work in London, first for the Pall Mall Gazette, then, from 1893, for the Westminster Gazette, in the opening years of its career, in either case under the editorship of Garrett's friend, Sir Edward Cook. In 1894 he produced a translation of Henrik Ibsen's Brand into English verse in the original metres.

In April of 1895 Garrett returned to South Africa to become editor of the Cape Times, the leading English newspaper in the sub-continent. He was not only editor of the paper but the principal writer in it, and came to play an important part in the coverage of crisis which was to unfold in southern Africa over the next years, including the Jameson Raid, the abortive rebellion in Johannesburg, the struggle between Rhodes and the Bond at the Cape, and between Kruger and the Uitlanders in the Transvaal, the Bloemfontein conference, and the growing tension between Great Britain and the South African Republic (the government of the Transvaal).