Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/21

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Garrett
15
Garrett

years previously he had stolen a halfpenny. The minister thereupon 'pointed him to the blood of Christ,' which gave him great relief. Subsequently, however, he took to vicious courses, had a man-of-war's man who had assaulted him arrested, frequented theatres, fought with his fellow-apprentice, contracted debts, and a disease for which he was treated in the Lock Hospital. On emerging from the hospital he attended the ministrations of Wesley's preachers, as well as the services of the church, used `to go out into the fields, and rave hell and damnation to sinners' to the detriment of his lungs, and came to be called a second Whitefield by the old women in Moorfields. A mysterious find of 80l. in his bed enabled him to pay his debts. At a somewhat later date he held forth at the old Rectifying House and the old Soap House, Islington, and in 1788 he laid the foundation-stone of the chapel since known as Islington Chapel in Church Street. Having thus established a certain reputation he was received into Lady Huntingdon's connexion and ordained. About this time he married; but was sorely tempted by love for a young woman of his congregation, whom he had saluted, according to the primitive Christian custom, with a 'holy kiss,' He removed to Basingstoke, and thence to Wallingford, and afterwards spent some three years in Guernsey. Returning to England, he ministered for a time at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, but developing lax views on baptism was ejected from Lady Huntingdon's connexion, and went into the business of a cotton dyer at Leicester. He soon, however, resumed preaching, and, after ministering for some time at Nottingham, established himself about the close of the last century at Lant Street Chapel, in the Borough, Southwark, having also a lecture at Monkwell Street Chapel, London. His views seem latterly to have inclined to antinomianism. The date of his death is uncertain.

He published: 1. 'The Power of an Endless Life contrasted with the Law of a Carnal Commandment. A Sermon preached at Monkwell Street on Thursday, 5 March 1801,' London, 1801, 12mo, 2. ' Rays of Everlasting Life,' not later than 1803. 3. `Democracy detected, Visionary Enthusiasm corrected; or Sixpennyworth of Good Advice selected from the Scriptures of Truth,'London, 1804 (?) (an attack on Joanna Southcott, to which she replied in 'Answer to Garrett's Book, and an Explanation of the word Bride, the Lamb's Wife, in the Revelations,' London, 1805, 8vo). 4. 'The Songs of Sion. Principally designed for the use of Churches and Congregations distinguished by the name of the Children of Sion,' London, 1804? 12mo. 5. 'Huntington corrected, and Garrett's Doctrine protected from the Misconstruction of the Disaffected; or a Reply to a Book lately published called " The Doctrine of Garrett refuted by William Huntington,"' Southwark, 1808, 12mo. The controversy appears to have related to the doctrine of the eternal sonship of Christ, which Huntington accused Garrett of denying. A plate of Garrett's head may be seen by the curious in Joanna Southcott's 'Answer.'

[The principal authority for Garrett's life is his autobiography prefixed to the Songs of Sion. See also Nelson's Islington, p. 273.]

J. M. R.

GARRETT, Sir ROBERT (1794–1869), lieutenant-general, colonel 43rd (light infantry) regiment, eldest son of John Garrett, of Ellingham, Isle of Thanet, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of J. Gore, of St. Peter's, Isle of Thanet, was born in 1794, educated at Harrow School, and on 12 March 1811 became ensign by purchase in the 2nd queen's foot. With his regiment he was present, at Fuentes d'Onoro, and in the attack on the forts of Salamanca,where he was the only surviving officer of his party, and received two wounds. He was promoted to a lieutenancy in the2nd garrison battalion on 3Sept. 1813, and on 2 Oct. following was transferred to the 7th royal fusiliers, with which he made the campaigns of 1813-14, and was again severely wounded in the Pyrenees. On 7 July 1814 he became captain by purchase in the old 97th (queen's own), and served with that corps in Ireland until it was disbanded, as the 96th foot, in 1818, when he was put on half-pay. He purchased on unattached majority in 1826, and in 1834, after nearly fifteen years on halfpay, was brought into the 46th foot, as major, and become regimental lieutenant-colonel in 1846. He served with the regiment, much of the time in command, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies and North America, and at home. He became brevet-colonel in January 1854.

When the 46th was doing duty, with Garrett in command, at Windsor in the summer of 1864, after the departure of the guards for the East, court-martials on two young officers of the regiment on charges arising out of a system of coarse practical joking at the expense of an unpopular subaltern, attracted much attention. The first case, which was virtually twice tried, gave much offence, as it was supposed to show that a poor officer had no security against the persecution of men of higher rank or wealth (Nav.and Mil. Gazette, 26 Aug. 1854). A clamour for further inquiry was met by the despatch of the regiment, a very fine body of men, under Garrett's command, to the Crimea, where it landed three