George Garett Walking Tour

The George Garrett Walking Tour covers the L1 postcode area, touring a landscape that has changed (and continues to change) dramatically. The tour explores the life, writings and activism of George Garrett a 'militant advocate of tolerance' who travelled the world and whose work explored the poverty and struggle of the working class in the 1920's and 1930's. Garrett occupied a unique and significant position as the central point of a compass that links Liverpool's literary, cultural, and maritime history.

George Garrett (1896-1966) was a seafarer, writer, playwright, and leading radical activist and anti-racist, who travelled the world and wrote a series of short stories and plays that led George Orwell, who he met in 1936, to say: ‘I was very greatly impressed by Garrett. Had I known before that it is he who writes under the pseudonym of Matt Low in the Adelphi [a magazine published in the 1920’s and 30’s]…I would have taken steps to meet him earlier’. Garrett was a founding member of the Merseyside Left Theatre and Unity Theatre.

Following the 1919 race riots, Garrett was one of the few white allies who defended the Black community and pointed out the divide and rule tactics of politicians, the media, and even trade union leaders. His erudite speech, delivered at a public meeting in the aftermath of the violence, still resonates today as we continue to face class and racial inequalities. In 1922 Garrett was one of the leaders of the first National Hunger March from Liverpool to London.

Start Point: The Women's Organisation, 54 Saint James Street, L1 0AB

End Point: Seaman's Home Gates at Liverpool One by John Lewis

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Host or Publisher Writing on the Wall