Mary Carpenter
Encyclopedia
Mary Carpenter was an English
educational and social reformer. The daughter of a Unitarian
minister, she founded a ragged school
and reformatories
, bringing previously unavailable educational opportunities to poor children and young offenders in Bristol
.
She published articles and books on her work and her lobbying was instrumental in the passage of several educational acts in the mid-nineteenth century. She was the first woman to have a paper published by the Statistical Society of London. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lv_wAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP9&dq=mary+carpenter+statistical+society&hl=en&ei=KPehTP2WCMuK4gbg6a2HAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mary%20carpenter%20statistical%20society&f=false. She addressed many conferences and meetings and became known as one of the foremost public speakers of her time. Carpenter was active in the anti-slavery movement
; she also visited India
, visiting schools and prisons and working to improve female education, establish reformatory schools and improve prison conditions. In later years she visited Europe and America, carrying on her campaigns of penal and educational reform.
Carpenter publicly supported women's suffrage
in her later years and also campaigned for female access to higher education. She is buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery
in Bristol.
, the first child of Doctor Lant Carpenter
, a Unitarian minister in Exeter
, and Anna (or Hannah) Penn. In 1817 the family moved to Bristol, where her father took charge of the Lewin's Mead Unitarian meeting house
. Doctor Carpenter established a boarding school at Great George Street, Brandon Hill
, which was run by his wife and daughters, where Mary studied the sciences, mathematics, Greek and Latin. She taught in the school, had spells as a governess in the Isle of Wight
and Hertfordshire
and, in 1827, returned to Bristol to become head teacher at had by now become Mrs Carpenter's Boarding School for Young Ladies.
In 1833 she met Ram Mohan Roy
, a founder of the Brahmo Samaj
movement which reformed social Hinduism
, and was influenced by his philosophy during his short stay with Miss Castle and Miss Kiddel at Beech House in Stapleton
before Roy died of meningitis
in September of that year. Later that year she also Doctor Joseph Tuckerman, an American
Unitarian who had founded the Ministry-at-Large to the Poor in Boston
, Massachusetts
. He is said to have directly inspired her start on the path of social reform, partly by a chance remark made when walking with Carpenter through a slum district of Bristol. A small boy in rags ran across their path and Tuckerman remarked, "That child should be followed to his home and seen after." He had established a Farm School in Massachusetts
, which became the model for later reformatories. Carpenter's later writings are based upon ideas she developed from her correspondence with Tuckerman.
es to alleviate poverty and improve education. After her father's death in 1840, Carpenter worked with her sisters in her mother's boarding school in Whiteladies Road
, Clifton
.
In 1843, her interest in the anti-slavery movement was aroused by a visit from Boston philanthropist Samuel May. In 1846 she attended a meeting which was addressed by prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
and Frederick Douglass
, who had escaped from slavery in 1838. She contributed to fund-raising efforts in the abolitionist cause and maintained an interest in this for the next twenty years. Her brothers William
, Phillip
and Russell
and her sister Anna were also active in this campaign. In 1851 the return of a fugitive slave from Boston back to the southern states caused her to say of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
that the United States
had "committed
an atrocious act ... against humanity, against itself, against God." This event caused her to concentrate on her educational work.
A bill had been introduced into Parliament
"to make provision for the better education of children in manufacturing districts", but it failed to pass due to nonconformist
opposition as it was seen to give pre-eminence to the position of the Church of England
. As a result of the failure of the bill, ragged school
s sprang up in many English towns, providing education, food and clothing to the poor, and prompting Carpenter to start such a school herself in Lewin's Mead
, Bristol. A night school for adults soon followed. In 1848 the closure of the Carpenters' private school gave her more time for educational and charity work. She published a memoir of Dr. Tuckerman and a series of articles on ragged schools which were published in The Inquirer, an English Unitarian newspaper, and later published in book form.
This was followed in 1851 by the publication of Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. She sketched out three classes of schools as urgently needed; good free day schools, feeding industrial schools and reformatory schools. This book drew public attention to her work, and she began to communicate with leading educational and reformist thinkers and reformers. Carpenter was consulted by those drafting educational bills, and she was invited to give evidence before House of Commons
committees and in 1852 she published Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment, which contributed to the passing of the Juvenile Offenders Act in 1854.
In 1852 she put her ideas into practice, establishing a reformatory school at Bristol in 1852, in Kingswood in the premises of a school which had originally been set by John Wesley
. Originally this was for boys and girls, but she soon decided to separate the sexes and set up a girls' reformatory in what is now the Red Lodge Museum
in 1854, initially funded by Lady Byron
.. Her strong religious beliefs drove her reforms. "“Love must be the ruling sentiment of all who attempt to influence and guide these
children”, she wrote in Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. Now that the principle of reformatory schools was established, Carpenter agitated for free day schools, arguing the ragged schools were entitled to financial aid from the government. At the Oxford meeting of the British Association (1860) she read a paper on this subject, and, mainly owing to her instigation, a conference on ragged schools in relation to government grants for education was held at Birmingham in 1861.
In the same year, Carpenter was invited to give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Education of Destitute Children. Amongst other evidence she criticised Catholic priests who warned young children of Irish immigrants from attending her ragged school. She condemned the "low Anglo Irish" as combining "the vices of the English in a large commercial town with their ... natural character in a very undesirable way."
She further said, "I can only say that the children told us that the priests had in one case flogged a child for coming to our school, and had used very strong influence to prevent them from coming, and that I have myself been absolutely insulted in the street by Catholic children ... who feel erroneously that they were showing their zeal for their own religion by insulting Protestants."
, which had been an ambition of hers since her meeting with Raja Ram Mohan Roy in 1833. She visited Calcutta
, Madras
and Bombay
, finding that for the most part girls were not educated past the age of twelve years, mainly due to a lack of educated female teachers. During her visit Carpenter met Keshab Chandra Sen, the leader of Brahmo Samaj. Sen asked her to form an organisation in Britain to improve communication between British and Indian reformers, which she did in 1870, establishing the National Indian Association. She visited many schools, hospitals and gaols and encouraged both Indian and British colonial administrators to improve and fund these. She was particularly concerned that the lack of good female education led to a shortage of women teachers, nurses and prison attendants.
She also participated in the inauguration of the Bengal Social Science Association, and addressed a paper to the governor-general on proposals for female education, reformatory schools and improving the conditions of gaols. She returned to India in 1868 and achieved funding to set up a Normal School
to educate female Indian teachers. In 1875 she made a final visit and was able to see many of her schemes in operation. She also presented proposals to for Indian prison reform to the Secretary of the Indian Government.
Carpenter's work now began to attract attention in Europe and further afield. Not all of such attention was favourable, Pope Pius IX
condemned her books and her work in 1864. Princess Alice of Hesse, who had become interested in social reform, invited her, along with Catherine Winkworth
, to Darmstadt
to help organise a Congress of Women Workers in 1872. This meeting resolved to work towards a "better preparation for domestic life" and "to pay greater attention to the mental development of an interest in the practical problems of life." At the conclusion of the meeting Carpenter proposed the establishment of an International Union for the Industrial Education of Women. She went on to Neuchâtel, Switzerland
to study Doctor Louis Guillaume's prison system, and in 1873 to America, where she met abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison
and Frederick Douglass
. She visited prisons and in 1874 wrote to the New York Prison Association to express her concern about "the dreadful state of the Prisons".
Carpenter supported the movement for the higher education of women, and had always supported the feminist cause but for most of her life would not do so publicly, believing that the unpopularity of the movement for women's suffrage
might damage her educational and penal reforms. But she did in 1877, the year of her death, appear on a public platform in Bristol, supporting the Bristol and West of England Society for Women’s Suffrage.
Carpenter never married, but she did adopt a five year old girl, Rosanna in 1858. She died, in her sleep, at the Red Lodge in June 1877 and was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery. Her funeral cortège was half a mile long. A public meeting in October 1877 raised £2,700 to be spent on her reform schools and a memorial in Bristol Cathedral
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
educational and social reformer. The daughter of a Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
minister, she founded a ragged school
Ragged school
Ragged Schools were charitable schools dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th century England. The schools were developed in working class districts of the rapidly expanding industrial towns...
and reformatories
Reformatory
Reformatory is a term that has had varied meanings within the penal system, depending on the jurisdiction and the era. It may refer to a youth detention center, or an adult correctional facility. The term is still in popular use for adult facilities throughout the United States, although most...
, bringing previously unavailable educational opportunities to poor children and young offenders in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
.
She published articles and books on her work and her lobbying was instrumental in the passage of several educational acts in the mid-nineteenth century. She was the first woman to have a paper published by the Statistical Society of London. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lv_wAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP9&dq=mary+carpenter+statistical+society&hl=en&ei=KPehTP2WCMuK4gbg6a2HAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=mary%20carpenter%20statistical%20society&f=false. She addressed many conferences and meetings and became known as one of the foremost public speakers of her time. Carpenter was active in the anti-slavery movement
Abolitionism
Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
; she also visited India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, visiting schools and prisons and working to improve female education, establish reformatory schools and improve prison conditions. In later years she visited Europe and America, carrying on her campaigns of penal and educational reform.
Carpenter publicly supported women's suffrage
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
in her later years and also campaigned for female access to higher education. She is buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery
Arnos Vale Cemetery
Arnos Vale Cemetery , located in Arno's Vale in Bristol, England, was established in 1837. Its first burial was in 1839. The cemetery followed a joint-stock model, funded by shareholders. It was laid out as an Arcadian landscape with buildings by Charles Underwood.Arnos Vale cemetery is located on...
in Bristol.
Early life
Carpenter was born in 1807, in ExeterExeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, the first child of Doctor Lant Carpenter
Lant Carpenter
Lant Carpenter, Dr. was an English educator and Unitarian minister.Lant Carpenter was born in Kidderminster, the third son of George Carpenter and his wife Mary ....
, a Unitarian minister in Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, and Anna (or Hannah) Penn. In 1817 the family moved to Bristol, where her father took charge of the Lewin's Mead Unitarian meeting house
Lewin's Mead Unitarian meeting house
The Lewin's Mead Unitarian meeting house is a former Unitarian Chapel built in 1788–1791 on Lewin's Mead in Bristol, England.Designed in the Neoclassical style by William Blackburn, the Chapel was constructed on the site of a previous chapel, built in 1705...
. Doctor Carpenter established a boarding school at Great George Street, Brandon Hill
Brandon Hill, Bristol
Brandon Hill, also known as St Brandon's Hill, is a hill close to Bristol city centre, between the districts of Clifton and Hotwells, in south west England....
, which was run by his wife and daughters, where Mary studied the sciences, mathematics, Greek and Latin. She taught in the school, had spells as a governess in the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
and Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
and, in 1827, returned to Bristol to become head teacher at had by now become Mrs Carpenter's Boarding School for Young Ladies.
In 1833 she met Ram Mohan Roy
Ram Mohan Roy
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was an Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated the lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is sometimes called the father of modern India...
, a founder of the Brahmo Samaj
Brahmo Samaj
Brahmo Samaj is the societal component of the Brahmo religion which is mainly practiced today as the Adi Dharm after its eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1859. It was one of the most influential religious movements responsible for the making of...
movement which reformed social Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, and was influenced by his philosophy during his short stay with Miss Castle and Miss Kiddel at Beech House in Stapleton
Stapleton, Bristol
Stapleton is an area in the north-eastern suburbs of the city of Bristol, England. The name is colloquially used today to describe the ribbon village along Bell Hill and Park Road in the Frome Valley. It borders Eastville to the South and Begbrook and Frenchay to the North...
before Roy died of meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
in September of that year. Later that year she also Doctor Joseph Tuckerman, an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Unitarian who had founded the Ministry-at-Large to the Poor in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. He is said to have directly inspired her start on the path of social reform, partly by a chance remark made when walking with Carpenter through a slum district of Bristol. A small boy in rags ran across their path and Tuckerman remarked, "That child should be followed to his home and seen after." He had established a Farm School in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, which became the model for later reformatories. Carpenter's later writings are based upon ideas she developed from her correspondence with Tuckerman.
Social work and anti-slavery
In 1835 she helped organise a "Working and Visiting Society", in the slums around Lewin's Mead, of which she remained secretary for nearly twenty years. This group was inspired by Tuckerman's work in Boston. The purposes of such societies were to visit the poor and raise funds from the emerging middle classMiddle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
es to alleviate poverty and improve education. After her father's death in 1840, Carpenter worked with her sisters in her mother's boarding school in Whiteladies Road
Whiteladies Road
Whiteladies Road is a main road in Bristol, England. It runs north from the Victoria Rooms to Durdham Down, and separates Clifton on the west side from Redland on the east...
, Clifton
Clifton, Bristol
Clifton is a suburb of the City of Bristol in England, and the name of both one of the city's thirty-five council wards. The Clifton ward also includes the areas of Cliftonwood and Hotwells...
.
In 1843, her interest in the anti-slavery movement was aroused by a visit from Boston philanthropist Samuel May. In 1846 she attended a meeting which was addressed by prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
and Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
, who had escaped from slavery in 1838. She contributed to fund-raising efforts in the abolitionist cause and maintained an interest in this for the next twenty years. Her brothers William
William Carpenter
William Carpenter may refer to:*William Carpenter , water colours of India*William Carpenter , Australian politician*William Carpenter, writer, American author...
, Phillip
Phillip Pearsall Carpenter
Philip Pearsall Carpenter Rev. Dr. , who in 1841, was ordained Presbyterian minister in England, and a Doctorate of Philosophy in 1860, and whose field work as a malacologist or conchologist in North America is still well regarded today...
and Russell
Russell Carpenter
Russell Paul Carpenter, ASC is an American cinematographer. He is most widely known for his collaborations with director James Cameron....
and her sister Anna were also active in this campaign. In 1851 the return of a fugitive slave from Boston back to the southern states caused her to say of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
Fugitive Slave Law of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. This was one of the most controversial acts of the 1850 compromise and heightened...
that the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
had "committed
an atrocious act ... against humanity, against itself, against God." This event caused her to concentrate on her educational work.
A bill had been introduced into Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
"to make provision for the better education of children in manufacturing districts", but it failed to pass due to nonconformist
Nonconformism
Nonconformity is the refusal to "conform" to, or follow, the governance and usages of the Church of England by the Protestant Christians of England and Wales.- Origins and use:...
opposition as it was seen to give pre-eminence to the position of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. As a result of the failure of the bill, ragged school
Ragged school
Ragged Schools were charitable schools dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th century England. The schools were developed in working class districts of the rapidly expanding industrial towns...
s sprang up in many English towns, providing education, food and clothing to the poor, and prompting Carpenter to start such a school herself in Lewin's Mead
Lewin's Mead
Lewin's Mead is an area of Bristol, England, part of the city ward of Cabot, in the historic centre of the city, lying just outside of the former medieval town walls. Several old buildings survive, including the Unitarian Chapel constructed in the late 18th century, an old sugar house, now a hotel...
, Bristol. A night school for adults soon followed. In 1848 the closure of the Carpenters' private school gave her more time for educational and charity work. She published a memoir of Dr. Tuckerman and a series of articles on ragged schools which were published in The Inquirer, an English Unitarian newspaper, and later published in book form.
Reformatories
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
committees and in 1852 she published Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment, which contributed to the passing of the Juvenile Offenders Act in 1854.
In 1852 she put her ideas into practice, establishing a reformatory school at Bristol in 1852, in Kingswood in the premises of a school which had originally been set by John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
. Originally this was for boys and girls, but she soon decided to separate the sexes and set up a girls' reformatory in what is now the Red Lodge Museum
Red Lodge Museum, Bristol
The Red Lodge Museum is an historic building in Bristol, England.It is open to the public is a branch of Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery.- History :...
in 1854, initially funded by Lady Byron
Anne Isabella Byron, Baroness Byron
Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron was the wife of the poet Lord Byron, and mother of Ada Lovelace, the patron and co-worker of mathematician Charles Babbage.-Name:Her names were unusually complex...
.. Her strong religious beliefs drove her reforms. "“Love must be the ruling sentiment of all who attempt to influence and guide these
children”, she wrote in Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. Now that the principle of reformatory schools was established, Carpenter agitated for free day schools, arguing the ragged schools were entitled to financial aid from the government. At the Oxford meeting of the British Association (1860) she read a paper on this subject, and, mainly owing to her instigation, a conference on ragged schools in relation to government grants for education was held at Birmingham in 1861.
In the same year, Carpenter was invited to give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Education of Destitute Children. Amongst other evidence she criticised Catholic priests who warned young children of Irish immigrants from attending her ragged school. She condemned the "low Anglo Irish" as combining "the vices of the English in a large commercial town with their ... natural character in a very undesirable way."
She further said, "I can only say that the children told us that the priests had in one case flogged a child for coming to our school, and had used very strong influence to prevent them from coming, and that I have myself been absolutely insulted in the street by Catholic children ... who feel erroneously that they were showing their zeal for their own religion by insulting Protestants."
India
In 1866 Carpenter visited IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, which had been an ambition of hers since her meeting with Raja Ram Mohan Roy in 1833. She visited Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, Madras
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
and Bombay
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, finding that for the most part girls were not educated past the age of twelve years, mainly due to a lack of educated female teachers. During her visit Carpenter met Keshab Chandra Sen, the leader of Brahmo Samaj. Sen asked her to form an organisation in Britain to improve communication between British and Indian reformers, which she did in 1870, establishing the National Indian Association. She visited many schools, hospitals and gaols and encouraged both Indian and British colonial administrators to improve and fund these. She was particularly concerned that the lack of good female education led to a shortage of women teachers, nurses and prison attendants.
She also participated in the inauguration of the Bengal Social Science Association, and addressed a paper to the governor-general on proposals for female education, reformatory schools and improving the conditions of gaols. She returned to India in 1868 and achieved funding to set up a Normal School
Normal school
A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name...
to educate female Indian teachers. In 1875 she made a final visit and was able to see many of her schemes in operation. She also presented proposals to for Indian prison reform to the Secretary of the Indian Government.
Europe and America
At the International Penal and Prison Congress in 1872 Carpenter read a paper on The Principles and Results of the English Reformatory and Certified Industrial Schools. She read forty papers at conferences of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science between the years of 1857 and 1746, gave many public lectures and was known as one of the most prominent speakers on social reform in an era when few women ever addressed public meetings.Carpenter's work now began to attract attention in Europe and further afield. Not all of such attention was favourable, Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
condemned her books and her work in 1864. Princess Alice of Hesse, who had become interested in social reform, invited her, along with Catherine Winkworth
Catherine Winkworth
Catherine Winkworth was an English translator. She is best known for bringing the German chorale tradition to English speakers with her numerous translations of hymns.-Biography:...
, to Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
to help organise a Congress of Women Workers in 1872. This meeting resolved to work towards a "better preparation for domestic life" and "to pay greater attention to the mental development of an interest in the practical problems of life." At the conclusion of the meeting Carpenter proposed the establishment of an International Union for the Industrial Education of Women. She went on to Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
to study Doctor Louis Guillaume's prison system, and in 1873 to America, where she met abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known as the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and as one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, he promoted "immediate emancipation" of slaves in the United...
and Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
. She visited prisons and in 1874 wrote to the New York Prison Association to express her concern about "the dreadful state of the Prisons".
Later life
Women's suffrage
Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
might damage her educational and penal reforms. But she did in 1877, the year of her death, appear on a public platform in Bristol, supporting the Bristol and West of England Society for Women’s Suffrage.
Carpenter never married, but she did adopt a five year old girl, Rosanna in 1858. She died, in her sleep, at the Red Lodge in June 1877 and was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery. Her funeral cortège was half a mile long. A public meeting in October 1877 raised £2,700 to be spent on her reform schools and a memorial in Bristol Cathedral
Bristol Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity is the Church of England cathedral in the city of Bristol, England, and is commonly known as Bristol Cathedral...
.
Legacy
The reformatory school in Kingswood was active until 1984 and the Red Lodge Girls' Reformatory closed in 1918. Carpenter's campaigns for juvenile penal reform had a major influence on the development of a more enlightened regime for dealing with young offenders. Her writings, political activism and public addresses had a major influence on correctional education in Britain, Europe, India and America and helped bring about major reforms in the 19th and 20th century. However, many of the causes of youth crime apparently remain unaddressed in the early 21st century and failures in contemporary youth jails have been criticised by official bodies.Works
- Morning and Evening Meditations, for Every Day in a Month. Boston: Wm. Crosby & H. P. Nichols, 1848
- Memoir of Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., of Boston (U.S.). London: Christian Tract Society, 1849
- Reformatory Schools: For the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes and for Juvenile Offenders. London: C. Gilpin, 1851
- Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment. London: W. & F. G. Cash, 1853
- Reformatories for Convicted Girls. Transactions of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, pp. 338–346, 1860
- Six Months in India. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1868
- Female Life in Prison with Robinson, Frederick William. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1862
- Our Convicts. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green , 1864
- The Last Days in England of the Rajah Rammohun Roy. London: Trubner and Co, 1866
- Reformatory Prison Discipline: As Developed by the Rt. Hon. Sir Walter Crofton, in the Irish Convict Prisons with Crofton, William. London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1872
- Memoir of the Rev. Lant Carpenter, LL.D. with Russell Lant Carpenter. London: E.T. Whitfield, 1875
- An address on prison discipline and juvenile reformatories. W. Jones, 1876
See also
- Education reformEducation reformEducation reform is the process of improving public education. Small improvements in education theoretically have large social returns, in health, wealth and well-being. Historically, reforms have taken different forms because the motivations of reformers have differed.A continuing motivation has...
- Prison reformPrison reformPrison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...
- Social reform
External links
- Works by Mary Carpenter at Google BooksGoogle Book SearchGoogle Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. The service was formerly known as Google Print when it was introduced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October...