George Frederick Sharp was born in Lancashire in 1888 and educated at University College School and King's College, London. He worked in the Comptroller and Accountant General's Department of the General Post Office from 1907 to 1912 and was on military service in the London Rifle Brigade from 1908 to 1912. In 1912, Sharp went to Nigeria, where he worked as a postal official; from 1928 to 1930, he was acting deputy Postmaster-General. Sharp retired in Oct 1930 and joined the National Trade Press London Ltd, copywriting and selling advertising space in trade journals. He was reappointed in Jul 1931 as Colonial Postmaster in Barbados. In 1939, he became Postmaster-General in British Guiana (Guyana), a post he held until 1946, except for four months when he went to Antigua as the first Federal Treasurer of the Leeward Islands. Sharp resigned from this post and returned to Barbados when the proposed amalgamation of the Windward and Leeward Islands was rejected by the legislative bodies of the constituent islands.

Apart from his work for the Post Office, Sharp was interested in journalism and publicity methods or advertising. This interest in writing shows in the way he preserved copies of letters giving accounts of his tours in Nigeria and notes on things he had seen or stories that he had heard. It also shows in the articles and reviews written for Nigerian papers and the resulting correspondence with editors. In 1934, Sharp received the unanimous thanks of the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council for his work in publicising Barbados by forming, in 1932, the Barbados Publicity Committee and the Tourist Information Bureau at the Government's request. Sharp was also the first editor of The Journal of the Barbados Museum and Historical Society, to which society he has donated some of his papers. When Sharp finally retired from the Colonial Service, he settled in Barbados.

Compiled with reference to A Biographical Dictionary of the British Colonial Service 1939-1966 by A.H.M. Kirk-Greene (1991).