George Cartwright, English trader and explorer of Labrador, Canada, was born February 12, 1739 in Marnham, England. His parents' names are unknown; however, his brothers include Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power loom, and Parliamentary reformer John Cartwright. Cartwright received a primary education at Magnus Grammar School in Newark, England, before joining the Cadet Company at Woolrich. He served in the East Indies where, by 1758 he had attained the rank of lieutenant. In 1760, during the Seven Years' War, George Cartwright served in Germany under the Marquis of Granby. A leave of absence brought him to Newfoundland in the 1760s, after which he was stationed in briefly in Jamaica. He visited Newfoundland again in 1769 before retiring from the army. In England, Cartwright joined a fur-trading venture and sailed in May 1770 with three others to Labrador, Canada.
Making periodic trips back to England, George Cartwright spent most of the next sixteen years in the Labrador region. He set up trading posts along the coast, from Hamilton Inlet to Cape St. Charles, and he sent beaver and silver fox furs to clothiers in Europe. Cartwright kept detailed records of his work in Labrador, and he took copious notes on the plant- and wildlife he encountered. Local Inuit tribes welcomed Cartwright who, from October 1772 through May 1773, brought a group of five Eskimo men and women to his homeland of Nottinghamshire, England.
Cartwright made careful observations of the Inuits' reactions to English architecture, landscape, arts and customs. In those months, his companions became local celebrities, met and greeted by people in all social levels. They received invitations to social events and were presented to King George III. Three days after their departure for Canada, one of the Inuit with Cartwright contracted smallpox. Turning back to England, Cartwright sought medical remedy; however, four of the five Eskimos he brought to England would die from the disease. He and an Inuit woman named Caubvic returned to Labrador June 1773, meeting the gathered crowd with tragedy - and likely smallpox - instead of wondrous stories of their adventure.
Cartwright's commercial enterprise suffered heavy financial losses during the American Revolution, and American privateers raided his posts in the 1780s. Bankrupt, he left Labrador in 1786 to an appointment as barrack master at Nottingham, a position until he held until he retired in 1817. In 1792, he published his journal and notes from the years in Canada. While an account of his travels, George Cartwright's three-volume A Journal of Transactions and Events During a Residency of Nearly Sixteen Years on the Coast of Labrador provides a detailed geography and natural history of Newfoundland and Labrador, and it devotes considerable pages to Inuit life and customs.
George Cartwright died May 19, 1819, in Mansfield, England, where he had retired in 1817.
Source: Warner, Tim. Pioneer Trapper . Newark Advertiser Online June 11, 1999. (August 12, 2003); Story, G. M. "Cartwright, George." The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2000 edition. Edited by James H. Marsh. Toronto: McClelland & Stuart, Inc. 1999.