Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Garbet, Samuel
GARBET, SAMUEL (d. 1751?), topographer, born at Norton, in the parish of Wroxeter, Shropshire, was educated at Donnington School and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he entered 12 June 1700, and graduated B.A. 23 May 1704, and M.A. 5 July 1707. He was ordained deacon 22 Sept. 1706, and became curate of Great Nesse. On 11 March 1712 he was elected second master of the free school at Wem, in Shropshire. In 1713 he also became curate of Edstaston. In 1724 he was offered, but declined, the headmastership of the Wem school. In 1742, ‘having [as he says] kept up the credit of the school for thirty years, and being in easy circumstances, he thought fit to retire,’ and devoted himself to the compilation of his ‘History of Wem, and the following Villages and Townships,’ which was published posthumously in 1818 (Wem, 8vo). In 1715 he had published a translation of Phædrus, bks. i. and ii. In 1751 he was still curate of Edstaston (Hist. of Wem, p. 280), and his death may have taken place in or after that year.
He married Anna, daughter of John Edwards of Great Nesse, by whom he had one son, Samuel, who graduated at Christ Church, Oxford, B.A. 1737, M.A. 1743, became curate of Wem and afterwards of Newtown, Shropshire, and died in 1768, being buried at Stoulton, near Worcester. According to Gough (Brit. Topogr. ii. 389) the younger Garbet had the principal hand in drawing up Valentine Green's ‘Survey of the City of Worcester’ (1764), and was ‘a great historian, chronologist, and linguist,’ though he published nothing in his own name.
[Garbet's History of Wem, especially pp. 208, 209; Cat. Oxford Grad.; Gough's Brit. Topogr.; Nash's Worcestershire, ii. 25.]