Edward Carpenter

Edward Carpenter
George Merrill (1891–1928)
Signature

Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English

An early advocate of sexual liberation, he had an influence on both D. H. Lawrence^[5] and Sri Aurobindo, and inspired E. M. Forster's novel Maurice.^[6][7]

Early life

Born at 45 Brunswick Square, Hove in Sussex, Carpenter was educated at nearby Brighton College, where his father Charles Carpenter^[8] was a governor. His brothers Charles, George and Alfred also went to school there. Edward's grandfather was Vice-Admiral James Carpenter (d 1845). When he was ten, Carpenter displayed a flair for the piano.^[9]

His academic ability became evident relatively late in his youth, but was sufficient to earn him a place at

In the following years he experienced an increasing sense of dissatisfaction with his life in the church and university, and became weary of what he saw as the hypocrisy of Victorian society.[9] He found great solace in reading poetry, later remarking that his discovery of the work of Walt Whitman caused "a profound change" in him.^[16] Five or six years later he visited Whitman in Camden, New Jersey, in 1877.

Move to the North of England

Carpenter was voluntarily released from the Anglican ministry and left the church in 1874 and moved to Leeds, becoming a lecturer as part of University Extension Movement, which was formed by academics who wished to widen access to education in deprived communities. He lectured in astronomy, the lives of ancient Greek women and music and had hoped to lecture to the working classes, but found his lectures were mostly attended by middle class people, many of whom showed little active interest in the subjects he taught. Disillusioned,^[9] he moved to Chesterfield, but finding that town dull, moved to nearby Sheffield a year later.^[10] Here he came into contact with manual workers, and he began to write poetry. His sexual preferences were for working men: "the grimy and oil-besmeared figure of a stoker" or "the thick-thighed hot coarse-fleshed young bricklayer with a strap around his waist".^[17]

When his father Charles Carpenter died in 1882, Edward inherited the sum of £6,000 (equivalent to £640,000 in 2021

Carpenter popularised the phrase the "Simple Life" in his essay Simplification of Life in his England's Ideal (1887).[22] Sheffield architect Raymond Unwin was a frequent visitor to Millthorpe and the simple revival of vernacular English architecture at Millthorpe and Carpenter's 'simple life' there were powerful influences on Unwin's later Garden City architecture and ideals, suggesting as they did a coherent but radical new lifestyle.^[21]

In Sheffield, Carpenter became increasingly radical.^[21] Influenced by a disciple of Engels, Henry Hyndman, he joined the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in 1883 and attempted to form a branch in the city. The group instead chose to remain independent, and became the Sheffield Socialist Society.^[23] While in the city he worked on a number of projects including highlighting the poor living conditions of industrial workers. In 1884, he left the SDF with William Morris to join the Socialist League. From there he stayed with William Harrison Riley while he was visiting Walt Whitman.^[24]

In 1883, Carpenter published the first part of Towards Democracy, a long poem expressing Carpenter's ideas about "spiritual democracy" and how Carpenter believed humanity could move towards a freer and more just society. Towards Democracy was heavily influenced by Whitman's poetry, as well as the

In 1886–87 Carpenter was in a tender relationship with George Hukin, a razor grinder.[20] Carpenter lived with Cecil Reddie from 1888 to 1889 and in 1889 helped Reddie found Abbotsholme School in Derbyshire as a notably progressive alternative to the traditional public school, with the financial support of Robert Muirhead and William Cassels.^[26]

In May 1889, Carpenter wrote a piece in the Sheffield Independent calling Sheffield the laughing-stock of the civilized world and said that the giant thick cloud of smog rising out of Sheffield was like the smoke arising from

On his return from India in 1891, he met

Eros is a great leveller. Perhaps the true Democracy rests, more firmly than anywhere else, on a sentiment which easily passes the bounds of class and caste, and unites in the closest affection the most estranged ranks of society. It is noticeable how often

Uranians of good position and breeding are drawn to rougher types, as of manual workers, and frequently very permanent alliances grow up in this way, which although not publicly acknowledged have a decided influence on social institutions, customs and political tendencies.^[28]

Carpenter included among his friends the scholar, author, naturalist, and founder of the

E. M. Forster was a close friend and visited the couple regularly. He later recounted that it was a visit to Millthorpe in 1913 that inspired him to write his gay-themed novel, Maurice.^[7][31] Forster wrote in his terminal note to the aforementioned novel that Merrill "touched my backside – gently and just above the buttocks. I believe he touched most people's. The sensation was unusual and I still remember it, as I remember the position of a long vanished tooth. He made a profound impression on me and touched a creative spring."^[32][7]

The relationship between Carpenter and Merrill was an inspiration for the relationship between Maurice Hall and Alec Scudder, the gamekeeper in Maurice.

In 1902 Carpenter's anthology of verse and prose, Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship, was published.^[35][36][37] The book was published again in 1906 by William Swan Sonnenschein.^[38]

In 1915, he published The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife, where he argued that the source of war and discontent in western society was class-monopoly and social inequality.

Carpenter became an advocate of the

The death of George Hukin in 1917 at the age of 56 seems to have broken Carpenter's attachment to the North of England. In 1922 he and Merrill moved to Guildford, Surrey ^[41] and the two lived at 23 Mountside Rd.^[42] On Carpenter's 80th birthday he was presented an album signed by every member of the then Labour Government, headed by Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister, who Carpenter had known since his teenage years.^[43]

In January 1928, Merrill died suddenly, having become dependent on alcohol since moving to Surrey.^[10] His death devastated Carpenter; he sold their joint home and moved in with his carer Ted Inigan.^[42] In May 1928, Carpenter suffered a paralytic stroke. He lived another 13 months before he died on 28 June 1929, aged 84.^[10] He was interred in the same grave as Merrill at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford under a lengthy invocation written by Carpenter.^[21]

His obituary in The Times was headed "Edward Carpenter, Author and Poet",^[44] though the text did also refer to his political campaigns.

Influence

Carpenter corresponded with many leading figures in political and cultural circles, among them

Carpenter was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore, and of Walt Whitman.^[46] Aldous Huxley recommended Carpenter's pamphlet Civilization: Its Cause and Cure in his book Science, Liberty and Peace.^[47] Modernist art critic Herbert Read credited Carpenter's pamphlet Non-Governmental Society with converting him to anarchism.^[48]

Leslie Paul was influenced by Carpenter's work; in turn he passed on Carpenter's ideas to the scouting group he founded, The Woodcraft Folk.^[49] Algernon Blackwood was another devotee of Carpenter's work; Blackwood corresponded with Carpenter and included a quotation from Civilization: Its Cause and Cure in his 1911 novel The Centaur.^[50]

Fenner Brockway, in a 1929 obituary of Carpenter, acknowledged him as an influence on Brockway and his associates when young. Brockway described Carpenter as "the greatest spiritual inspiration of our lives. Towards Democracy was our Bible."^[51] Ansel Adams was an admirer of Carpenter's writings, especially Towards Democracy.^[52] Emma Goldman cited Carpenter's books as an influence on her thought, and stated that Carpenter possessed "the wisdom of the sage."^[53] Countee Cullen said that reading Carpenter's book Iolaus "opened up for me soul windows which had been closed".^[54]

Carpenter was sometimes called "the English Tolstoy" and Tolstoy himself considered him "a worthy heir of Carlyle and Ruskin".^[20]

Revival of reputation

Following his death, Carpenter's written works fell out of print and were largely forgotten except among devotees of British labour movement history. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, interest in his work was revived by historians such as

• List of Christ myth theory proponents

References

Bibliography

• ISBN 0-7195-5278 8
  .
• Beith, Gilbert (ed), Edward Carpenter: In Appreciation, George Allen & Unwin, 1931.
• Bowan, Kate (2017). "Friendship, cosmopolitan connections, and Late Victorian Socialist songbook culture". In Watt, Paul; Scott, Derek B.; Spedding, Patrick (eds.). Cheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge University Press.
  ISBN 9781107159914
  .
• Brown, Tony, ed. (1990). Edward Carpenter and Late Victorian Radicalism. London: Frank Cass.
  ISBN 978-0-71463-400-5
  .
• Delany, Paul (1987). The Neo-pagans: Rupert Brooke and the ordeal of youth.
  ISBN 978-0-02-908280-5
  .
• Greig, Noël: Dear Love of Comrades: London: Gay Men's Press, 1979.
• Lewis, Edward, Edward Carpenter: An Exposition and an Appreciation, Macmillan, 1915.
• Stanley Pierson, "Edward Carpenter, Prophet of a Socialist Millennium," Victorian Studies, vol. 13, no. 3 (March 1970), pp. 301–318.
• Rowbotham, Sheila (1980). "In search of Edward Carpenter". Radical America. 14 (4): 48–59.
• ISBN 9781844674213
  .
• Toibin, Colm (29 January 2009). "Urning". London Review of Books. No. 29 January 2009. LRB. pp. 14–16.
• Tsuzuki, Chushchi, Edward Carpenter 1844-1929 Prophet of Human Fellowship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
• Twigg, Julia The Vegetarian Movement in England 1847-1981, PhD (LSE) thesis, 1981, in particular Chapter Six e, i, as on the International Vegetarian Union website.

External links

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Edward Carpenter

Wikiquote has quotations related to Edward Carpenter.

Media related to Edward Carpenter at Wikimedia Commons

• Works by Edward Carpenter at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edward Carpenter at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Sheffield Archives. Edward Carpenter Collection
• Edward Carpenter Archive at
  marxists.org
• Millthorpe and Edward Carpenter, Historic England