George Cartwright in Labrador

Three years ago, “The Labrador Companion” was discovered in Yorkshire. This is a previously unknown manuscript written by Captain George Cartwright (1739-1819) about his years spent in Labrador.  It is both an instructional text unlike any others related to the early fur trade in eastern North America, and it is also a text about natural history observations.

Cartwright was born at the manor house in Marnham, on the banks of the River Trent in Nottinghamshire, and went on to become a pioneer settler in Labrador in the far north east of Canada. He was nick-named ‘Labrador’ Cartwright having lived for nearly 16 years in these sub-arctic lands hunting and collecting animals and skins for export.

This annotated edition, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press, transcribes ‘The Labrador Companion’ in full. Cartwright documented the everyday work of Labrador’s particular kind of fur-trade life based on his experiences operating a series of merchant stations in southern Labrador between 1770 and 1786.

http://www.mqup.ca/george-cartwright—s-the-labrador-companion-products-9780773548060.php?page_id=105621&#!prettyPhoto

This publication is a digitised version of an M.Phil thesis by the late Ann Cockburn which was awarded in 1979.

The thesis concerns a manuscript notebook kept by the Reddish family, who kept a water mill at East Bridgford and were later framework knitters at Lowdham. The manuscript mostly contains music and the song lyrics, many evidently copied from broadside ballads. These are all transcribed in the thesis together with commentaries on related versions from elsewhere and possible sources. Sound recordings of 12 of the songs and tunes are also available for download as MP3 files. This is an important source of information on Nottinghamshire folk song.

The Daybook additionally includes some records of payments mentioning named individuals and a few family notes. These are not transcribed in the thesis, but photographic facsimilies of the daybook are also available to download from Nottingham eTheses. The original manuscript is now held by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, English Folk Dance and Song Society, London.

This quotation as been copied literatim from the final page of the manuscript:

“Memmory of the Flood

on Wednesday the 11th of February 1795 Came up to the fish house thack within about 3 inches that side next y trent and I went to shelford mannor when it was just at the hight in John Millington’s Boat to help to fetch 199 sheep out of the water the property of Mr. Wm. Welson then tennat at Shelford Mannor.”

The digitised version of the thesis is available at etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/3962/.

Peter Millington