Mary Carpenter facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mary Carpenter
Portrait photograph of Carpenter in later life
Born	(1807-04-03)3 April 1807 Exeter, United Kingdom
Died	14 June 1877(1877-06-14) (aged 70) Bristol, United Kingdom
Resting place	Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol
Years active	1835–1877
Known for	Education, Social reform
Parents	Lant Carpenter (father) Anna Penn (mother)
Relatives	William Benjamin Carpenter (brother) Philip Pearsall Carpenter (brother) Russell Lant Carpenter (brother)

Mary Carpenter's name on the Reformers’ Monument, Kensal Green Cemetery

Mary Carpenter (born 3 April 1807 – died 14 June 1877) was a British woman who worked to make education and society better for everyone. Her father was a Unitarian minister. Mary started special schools called "ragged schools" and "reformatories". These schools gave poor children and young people who had broken the law a chance to learn and have a better life in Bristol.

She wrote many articles and books about her work. Her efforts helped pass important laws about education in the mid-1800s. She was the first woman to have her work published by a group called the Statistical Society of London. Mary spoke at many meetings and became known as one of the best public speakers of her time. Carpenter was also active in the anti-slavery movement. She visited India to help improve female education, set up reformatory schools, and make prisons better. Later, she traveled to Europe and America, continuing her work for better prisons and schools.

In her later years, Mary Carpenter openly supported women's suffrage, which meant women getting the right to vote. She also worked to help women get into higher education. She is buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery in Bristol. There is also a memorial for her in Bristol Cathedral.

Early Life and Education

Mary Carpenter was born on 3 April 1807 in Exeter. She was the first child of Lant Carpenter, a Unitarian minister, and Anna Penn. In 1817, her family moved to Bristol. There, her father became the minister at the Lewin's Mead Unitarian meeting house.

Her father also started a boarding school at Great George Street. Mary's mother and sisters helped run this school. Mary studied many subjects there, including science, math, Greek, and Latin. She taught at the school and also worked as a governess for a while. In 1827, she returned to Bristol to become the head teacher of her mother's school, which was then called Mrs Carpenter's Boarding School for Young Ladies.

In 1833, she met Ram Mohan Roy, who helped reform Hinduism in India. His ideas influenced her greatly. Later that year, she also met Joseph Tuckerman, an American Unitarian. He had started a special program to help the poor in Boston, USA. Tuckerman inspired Mary to begin her journey in social reform. He once saw a poor boy in rags and said, "That child should be followed to his home and seen after." This remark deeply affected Mary. Tuckerman had also created a Farm School in America, which later became a model for reformatories. Mary's future writings were based on the ideas she learned from Tuckerman.

Helping Others and Fighting Slavery

In 1835, Mary helped create a "Working and Visiting Society" in the poor areas around Lewin's Mead. She was the secretary of this group for nearly 20 years. This society was inspired by Tuckerman's work. Its goal was to visit poor people and raise money from the middle classes. This money would help reduce poverty and improve education. After her father died in 1840, Mary worked with her sisters at her mother's boarding school in Clifton.

In 1843, Mary became interested in the anti-slavery movement. This happened after a visit from Samuel May, a kind person from Boston. In 1846, she attended a meeting where famous abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass spoke. She helped raise money for the anti-slavery cause for the next 20 years. Her brothers and sister were also involved in this important campaign. In 1851, a runaway slave was sent back to the southern states from Boston. Mary felt this was a terrible act against humanity. This event made her focus even more on her educational work.

A law was proposed in Parliament to improve education for children in factory areas. However, it did not pass because some religious groups disagreed with it. Because this law failed, "ragged schools" started appearing in many English towns. These schools provided education, food, and clothes to poor children. Mary Carpenter decided to start her own ragged school in Lewin's Mead, Bristol. Soon after, she opened a night school for adults. In 1848, the Carpenters' private school closed, giving Mary more time for her charity work. She wrote a book about Joseph Tuckerman and articles about ragged schools. These articles were later published as a book.

Starting Reformatories

The Red Lodge, Bristol, where Mary Carpenter established a reformatory school in 1854

In 1851, Mary published a book called Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders. In this book, she explained that three types of schools were urgently needed:

• Good free day schools for all children.
• Feeding industrial schools for children who needed help.
• Reformatory schools for young people who had broken the law.

This book made her work famous, and she began talking with important thinkers and reformers. People who were writing new education laws asked for her advice. She was also asked to speak to committees in the British House of Commons. In 1852, she published Juvenile Delinquents, their Condition and Treatment. This book helped lead to the passing of the Juvenile Offenders Act in 1854.

In 1852, Mary put her ideas into action. She opened a reformatory school in Kingswood, Bristol. It was in a building that had once been a school started by John Wesley. At first, it was for both boys and girls. But Mary soon decided to separate them. In 1854, she set up a girls' reformatory in what is now the Red Lodge Museum. Lady Byron first paid for this school.

Red Lodge Reformatory

When Lady Byron died in 1860, Mary Carpenter received money to buy the Red Lodge. This included a small house to train the girls in housework. Mary Carpenter's detailed diaries show how she turned the empty Red Lodge into a working school. The diaries also show that "cells" in the cellar were used to discipline "violent, difficult, and noisy girls." Other punishments included caning and cutting their hair very short.

Frances Power Cobbe, who was against animal testing, worked at the Red Lodge and lived with Mary Carpenter from 1858 to 1859. However, they had a difficult relationship, and Cobbe left the school.

Mary's strong religious beliefs guided her reforms. She wrote in her book, Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders, that "Love must be the ruling sentiment of all who attempt to influence and guide these children." Once reformatory schools were established, Mary pushed for free day schools. She argued that ragged schools should get money from the government. In 1860, she became the first woman to present a paper at a British Association meeting in Oxford. She spoke about this topic. Mostly because of her efforts, a meeting about ragged schools and government funding was held in Birmingham in 1861.

In the same year, Mary Carpenter was asked to give evidence to a House of Commons committee. She criticized Catholic priests who warned young children of Irish immigrants not to attend her ragged school. She believed these priests used strong influence to stop children from coming.

Work in India

In 1866, Mary Carpenter visited India. This had been a dream of hers since meeting Raja Ram Mohan Roy in 1833. She visited Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. She found that most girls did not get an education past the age of 12. This was mainly because there were not enough educated female teachers. During her visit, Mary met Keshab Chandra Sen, a leader of the Brahmo Samaj movement. Sen asked her to create an organization in Britain to improve communication between British and Indian reformers. She did this in 1870, setting up the National Indian Association.

Mary visited many schools, hospitals, and prisons. She encouraged both Indian and British leaders to improve and fund these places. She was especially worried that the lack of good education for women led to a shortage of women teachers, nurses, and prison staff. The Mary Carpenter Hall at the Brahmo Girls school in Calcutta was built to remember her work.

She also helped start the Bengal Social Science Association. She gave a paper to the governor-general with ideas for female education, reformatory schools, and better prisons. She returned to India in 1868. She managed to get money to set up a Normal School to train female Indian teachers. In 1875, she made a final visit and saw many of her plans working. She also gave ideas for Indian prison reform to the Indian Government.

Travels in Europe and America

At the International Penal and Prison Congress in 1872, Mary Carpenter read a paper. It was about The Principles and Results of the English Reformatory and Certified Industrial Schools. She read 40 papers at conferences of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science between 1857 and 1876. She also gave many public talks. She was known as one of the most important speakers on social reform. This was at a time when few women spoke at public meetings.

Mary Carpenter's work started to get attention in Europe and other parts of the world. Not everyone liked her work. Pope Pius IX spoke against her books and work in 1864. Princess Alice of Hesse became interested in social reform. She invited Mary, along with Catherine Winkworth, to Darmstadt in 1872. They helped organize a Congress of Women Workers. This meeting decided to work towards "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 end of the meeting, Mary suggested creating an International Union for the Industrial Education of Women.

She then went to Neuchâtel, Switzerland, to study Louis Guillaume's prison system. In 1873, she traveled to America. There, she met abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. She visited prisons and in 1874, she wrote to the New York Prison Association. She shared her concerns about "the dreadful state of the Prisons."

Later Life and Legacy

Blue plaque on the Red Lodge, Bristol.

Mary Carpenter supported the movement for women to get higher education. She had always supported women's rights. However, for most of her life, she did not do so publicly. She believed that the unpopularity of the movement for women's suffrage (the right to vote) might harm her work on education and prison reform. But in 1877, the year she died, she appeared on a public stage in Bristol. She supported the Bristol and West of England Society for Women’s Suffrage. In 1868, she was invited to meet Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale at Windsor Castle.

Mary Carpenter never married. However, she adopted a five-year-old girl named Rosanna in 1858. Mary died peacefully in her sleep at the Red Lodge in June 1877. She was buried at Arnos Vale Cemetery. Her funeral procession was very long. In October 1877, a public meeting raised £2,700. This money was used for her reform schools and a memorial in Bristol Cathedral.

Mary Carpenter's efforts to reform the justice system for young people had a big impact. Her work led to a more understanding way of dealing with young offenders. Her writings, political actions, and public speeches greatly influenced education for prisoners in Britain, Europe, India, and America. She helped bring about major reforms in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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

Personal Papers

Mary Carpenter's papers and letters, along with records from the Red Lodge Reformatory and the Kingswood Reformatory, are kept at Bristol Archives (Ref. 12693) (online catalogue). More records about Mary Carpenter can also be found at the Boston Public Library, Dorset History Centre, Oxford University: Tate Library, Huntington Library, and the British Library Manuscript Collections.

See also

• Education reform
• Prison reform
• Social reform