Isabella Fyvie Mayo was a Scottish poet, novelist, suffragist, and reformer. With the help of friends, she published poems and stories, using the pseudonym, Edward Garrett. She spent most of her life living in Aberdeen, where she was the first woman elected to a public board. 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 RevStephen 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
Her 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, she 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. She was only sixteen when she began working to pay off a family debt. It enabled her to make her books helpful to others, and especially to those who were harassed by doubt. At the age of 18, she made the acquaintance of Irish novelistAnna Maria Hall whose encouragement and practical help were of great use to her. In 1870, she married John Ryall Mayo, a London lawyer, who in 1854, became the first mayor of Yeovil. He 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, she became a widow, left with one son. In the following year, she 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. 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, Girls' Own Paper, Pa Mall Gazette, and others.
Personal life
Mayo favoured women's suffrage. George Ferdinands, a Sri Lankan whom Mayo considered an adopted son, shared her Scottish home till her death. She died on 13 May 1914, of cancer.
Style and themes
Her 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.
