Isabella Fyvie Mayo facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Isabella Fyvie Mayo
Born	Isabella Fyvie 10 December 1843 London, England
Died	13 May 1914(1914-05-13) (aged 70)
Pen name	Edward Garrett
Occupation	poet, novelist, suffragist, reformer
Nationality	Scottish
Spouse	John Ryall Mayo ​ ​ (m. 1870; died 1877)​
Relatives	Alexander Hislop Stephen Hislop
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Isabella Fyvie Mayo (pen name, Edward Garrett; 10 December 1843 – 13 May 1914) was a Scottish poet, novelist, suffragist, and reformer. With the help of friends, Fyvie Mayo published poems and stories, using the pseudonym, Edward Garrett. Fyvie Mayo spent most of her life living in Aberdeen, where she was the first woman elected to a public board. Fyvie Mayo was described as an "ethical anarchist, pacifist, anti-imperialist and anti-racist campaigner"; and her "home was an asylum for Asian Indians."

Early years and education

Isabella Fyvie was born on 10 December 1843 in London of Scottish parents George Fyvie and Margaret Thomson. When a child, her delight was to sit on her father's knee and listen to the legends of Buchan, and the stories that he brought with him from his father's farm, where his ancestors had been settled for three hundred years. His people were staunch Scotch Episcopalians, one of them being the Dean of Moray and Ross. Her mother's ancestors, on the paternal side, belonged to the Border country, and were all of the nonconforming religion, among her near relatives being Rev Alexander Hislop, Free Church, Arbroath, author of The Two Babylons, and the Rev Stephen Hislop, missionary and scientist in India; while, on the maternal side, her mother's family belonged to an old Aberdeen family of Established Kirk persuasions.

Younger by many years than the rest of the family, she was educated at a day school, where she took many prizes.

Career

Fyvie Mayo's first impulse to literary work came from a relative, then a student at King's College London, who saw promise in her school essays and occasional poems, and threw out the suggestion of a literary career. For seven years, Fyvie Mayo worked without being paid; and it was not till her "Occupations of a Retired Life " appeared in The Sunday Magazine that she felt encouraged to pursue her desire of a literary career. Fyvie Mayo was only sixteen when she began working to pay off a family debt. It enabled Fyvie Mayo to make her books helpful to others, and especially to those who were harassed by doubt. At the age of 18, Fyvie Mayo made the acquaintance of Irish novelist Anna Maria Hall whose encouragement and practical help were of great use to her.

In 1870, Isabella married John Ryall Mayo, a London lawyer, who in 1854, became the first mayor of Yeovil. Fyvie Mayo's husband was in delicate health, which made travel imperative, and this led to a Canadian tour, followed by residence in Surrey, of which there are glimpses in some of her stories. In 1877, Fyvie Mayo became a widow, left with one son. In the following year, Fyvie Mayo left London, which had then grown unendurable to her. At first, she was in danger of lapsing into invalidism, but her health improved after moving to Aberdeen. There Fyvie Mayo got involved in the debates in the women's suffrage movement between those she called the 'suffragists of the old school' and the militant WSPU, and the 'singularly effete' local activists linked so closely to the Women's Liberal Association that it was limited to 'one shade of political opinion.' Fyvie Mayo had a range of exchanges as convenor of the local WSPU events, with Emmeline Pankhurst and Helen Fraser, and in the local press with someone calling themselves 'Anti-Suffragette'. The collection of some of her letters are held in the University of Aberdeen archive (women's suffrage) , Fyvie Mayo was nominated for a blue memorial plaque in Aberdeen.

Fyvie Mayo preferred to be known not as 'Mrs" or by her husband's name, as was the convention, but as Isabella Fyvie Mayo although she is best known by her nom de plume, Edward Garrett, in the pages of The Sunday Magazine, Good Words, The Quiver, Sunday at Home, The Girl's Own Paper, Pall Mall Gazette, and others.

Personal life

Isabella Fyvie Mayo

Fyvie Mayo favoured women's suffrage and spoke out for women's right to vote, but her approach to the campaign changed over the years 1860 - 1912, and her writings both reflected and criticised the changes in the movement, often regarding the middle class activists making choices that poorer women could not afford to make. One research states that Fyvie Mayo may have spoken to Mahatma Gandhi, with whom she corresponded about the women's movement tactics. George Ferdinands, a Sri Lankan whom Fyvie Mayo considered an adopted son, shared her Scottish home till her death. Fyvie Mayo died on 13 May 1914, of cancer and left her estate to Ferdinands.

Style and themes

Fyvie Mayo (Edward Garrett's) popular tales and sketches were charming and natural in detail, and showed that her sympathies were wide, while her narratives were drawn with power and accuracy. Her ballads were remarkable for their simplicity and those lightly marked rhymes peculiar to that style of verse. She also took easily to the artificial measures of the sonnet, and all her utterances possessed not only directness of thought, but also depth of imagination and artistic finish.

Selected works