Thomas MacDermot
Thomas MacDermot (26 June 1870 – 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". He also published under the pseudonym Tom Redcam (derived from his surname spelled in reverse).
Also recorded as Thomas Henry MacDermot · Thomas H. MacDermot · Tom Redcam
Thomas MacDermot
- Name
- Thomas MacDermot
- Born
- 26 June 1870
- Birthplace
- Clarendon, Colony of Jamaica, British Empire
- Died
- 8 October 1933
- Occupation
- poet, novelist, and editor
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In this article
Biography
Biography
He was the first Poet Laureate of Jamaica.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Thomas MacDermot • Born — 26 June 1870 • Birthplace — Clarendon, Colony of Jamaica, British Empire • Died — 8 October 1933 • Occupation — poet, novelist, and editor
Early life
Early life
Thomas Henry MacDermot was born in Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, the third of five children, and spent much of his childhood in Trelawny. He was educated at the Falmouth Academy and at the Church of England Grammar School in Kingston, Jamaica.
Career
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. 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. 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
Death
He died in an English nursing home in 1933, aged 63.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Thomas MacDermot, revision 1358730681 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Margaret Mary MacDermot and Thomas Henry MacDermot", de bene esse, 17 April 2013.
- 2.Michael Hughes, A Companion to West Indian Literature, Collins, 1979, p. 75.
- 3."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.
- 4.http://nlj.gov.jm/2017/06/26/remembering-tom-redcam-jamaicas-first-poet-laureate/. "Remembering Tom Redcam: Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate" National Library of Jamaica, 26 June 2017
- 5.Mervyn Morris, "Poet Laureate Remarks at Investiture Ceremony, King’s House, 21 May 2014".
- 6.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.
- 7."Caribbean Literature", Alexandra Street Press.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- 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
Citations
References
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Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 28 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
39,529 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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