George Cartwright (trader)
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George Cartwright (February 12, 1739 – May 19, 1819), trader, explorer, born in Marham, England, died unmarried in nearby Mansfield, England.
Cartwright's father, John, first pursued a naval career and through it was closely connected with George’s early ventures in Newfoundland later resigned in protest against participation in the American Revolutionary War and became a radical pamphleteer.
Cartwright was born at Marham in Nottinghamshire, the eldest brother of Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power loom and of John Cartwright, notable English parliamentary reformer and Radical. He was educated at Newark-on-Trent and at Randall’s Academy, in Heath, West Yorkshire and at the age of 15 or 16 as a gentleman cadet in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, London. In 1755 he became an ensign in the 39th Foot, but to his regret missed being with the detachment commanded by Robert Clive at the retaking of Fort William, Calcutta, the capture of Chandernagore from the French, and the victory at Plassey over the nawab of Bengal.
Cartwright was promoted lieutenant on February 2, 1759. Early in 1760 he accompanied the Marquess of Granby to Germany as aide-de-camp and served as a staff officer with the British contingent under Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick. He returned to England at the end of the Seven Years' War as a captain in the army.
In the spring of 1766, on John’s appointment as first lieutenant of the Guernsey, flagship of Commodore Hugh Palliser, George sailed with the governor-designate to Newfoundland where he spent a season cruising along the northeast coast. On his second voyage in the spring of 1768 to Newfoundland with John, his brother, Cartwright was in the expedition dispatched by Palliser under John’s command into the interior of the island to establish friendly relations with the Beothuks at Red Indian Lake.
Cartwright's next career was a trader and entrepreneur in Labrador where his operations from 1770 to 1786 was the stretch of coastline between Cape Charles, Labrador, where he occupied Nicholas Darby’s old site, and Hamilton Inlet. There were years of success, but others of failure, and in 1778 his posts were plundered by American privateers with losses amounting to £14,000. This came about when his servant Dominick Kinnien defected to join the crew of the Boston privateer John Grimes.
In his relations with the native peoples of Labrador, especially the Inuit, Cartwright displayed an honesty which led to mutual trust. In 1772 he took a family of five Inuit to England, where they created considerable interest, meeting with the king, members of the Royal Society including Joseph Banks, and James Boswell who reported to a skeptical Samuel Johnson his ability to communicate with them by sign language. On the return trip to Newfoundland all of the Inuit had died of smallpox except for Caubvick. Mount Caubvick, the highest coastal point on the east coast of the North America and is the second highest mountain in Canada east of the Rocky Mountains, was named for her.
After 1787 Cartwright resided in England. In 1793 he gave evidence before a committee of the House of Commons on affairs in Newfoundland and Labrador. His military experience led to his appointment during the Napoleonic Wars as barrack master at Nottingham where in later years, known by the sobriquet Old Labrador, he was a distinguished and popular figure.
His name is borne by a settlement at the entrance to Sandwich Bay, Labrador - Cartwright. He had an unparallelled love for Labrador until his death, as his niece affirmed in her biography of his brother John, and as was evidenced in his own work:
- Fish, Fowl and Ven'son, now our tables grace
- Roast Beaver too, and e'ery Beast of Chase.
- Luxurious living this! who'd wish for more?
- Were QUIN alive, he'd haste to Labrador!
His journals have been published.
