George Quarrie

George Quarrie (c. 1846 – 1926) was a Manx poet active in the 1880s–1910s, best known for his poem, The Melliah.

Quarrie was born at Ballavair, Kirk Bride, in around 1846, the eighth child of John Quarrie and Mary Hardie. By 1881 he was a General Commission Agent in Barrow-in-Furness, where he was married. came to be celebrated as a poem that "pulses with reality and humour and a hearty enjoyment of life." Recording individual characters and occurrences from the Melliah that Quarrie enjoyed in his youth, the poem represents one of the key sources for one of the major festivals in the traditional Manx farming calendar. The vividness and richness of Quarrie's description of the Melliah was the main source behind an important scene in Hall Caine's The Manxman. This apparent plagiarism caused much controversy in the Manx newspapers once Quarrie's detailed explication of the connection between the two works was published in October 1889. By September 1898 he was living at 2720 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, where he had a daughter. By 1913 Quarrie was signing his poems from 230 W. 116 St., New York, and by April 1918 he was living at 330 East 55th Street.

Whilst in America, Quarrie continued to write poems about his youth in the north of the Isle of Man, receiving comments in the Manx press such as: "Mr Quarrie knew the Isle of Man thoroughly. This was proved in almost every line of his poetry." As well as his literary connection to Hall Caine, Quarrie is recognised as having influenced P. W. Caine and W. Walter Gill. complaint of the British treatment of Parnell in the struggle for Irish Home Rule, mocking of socialism, and defence of the working class against the conservative policies of the 1880s and 90s. This engagement in the politics of the UK and the Isle of Man continued until the end of his life, such as in his engaging in pro-war propaganda poems against "the Hun" during World War I. He died in New York City at the age of 80 at the start of August 1926.