Thomas MacDermot (26 June 1870"Margaret Mary MacDermot and Thomas Henry MacDermot", de bene esse, 17 April 2013. – 8 October 1933) was a Jamaican poet, novelist, and editor, editing the Jamaica Times for more than 20 years. He was "probably the first Jamaican writer to assert the claim of the West Indies to a distinctive place within English-speaking culture".Michael Hughes, A Companion to West Indian Literature, Collins, 1979, p. 75. He also published under the pseudonym Tom Redcam (derived from his surname spelled in reverse)."Redcam, Tom (1870-1933)", Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly (eds), Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, Routledge (1994), 2nd edition 2005, p. 1338. He was the first Poet Laureate of Jamaica.
Early life Thomas Henry MacDermot was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, the third of five children,. "Remembering Tom Redcam: Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate" National Library of Jamaica, 26 June 2017 and spent much of his childhood in Trelawny.Mervyn Morris, "Poet Laureate Remarks at Investiture Ceremony, King’s House, 21 May 2014". He was educated at the Falmouth Academy and at the Church of England Grammar School in Kingston, Jamaica.
Career He was a teacher before taking up journalism, at The Jamaica Post, The Daily Gleaner and the Jamaica Times, of which he was editor for 20 years. He worked to promote Jamaican literature through all of his writing, starting a weekly short story contest in the Jamaica Times in 1899. Notable among the young writers he helped and encouraged are Claude McKay and H. G. de Lisser.
In 1903, MacDermot started the All Jamaica Library, a series of novellas and short stories written by Jamaicans about Jamaica that were reasonably priced to encourage local readers.Pat Dunn and Pamela Mordecai, "All Jamaica Library", in Daniel Balderston, Mike Gonzalez, Ana M. Lopez (eds), Encyclopedia of Contemporary Latin American and Caribbean Cultures, Routledge, 2000, p. 53. Alongside his work as a journalist, he wrote two novels. The first, Becka’s Buckra Baby, is said to mark the beginning of modern Caribbean writing."Caribbean Literature", Alexandra Street Press. MacDermot's poems were not collected into a single volume until 1951. He was posthumously proclaimed Jamaica's first Poet Laureate for the period 1910–33 by the Jamaican branch of the Poetry League.
MacDermot retired because of illness in 1922.
Death He died in an English nursing home in 1933, aged 63.
Bibliography
Becka's Buckra Baby (1903), Times Printery, Jamaica. One Brown Girl And ¼ (1909), Times Printery, Jamaica. Orange Valley and Other Poems (1951), Kingston, Jamaica: Pioneer Press.
References
External links Becka’s Buckra Baby from the Digital Library of the Caribbean (1904) One Brown Girl and - a Jamaica Story from the Digital Library of the Caribbean (1909) Also in the All Jamaica Library, but not written by Thomas MacDermot, Maroon Medicine, by E. A. Dodd (listed as E. Snod) from the Digital Library of the Caribbean