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OWEN, ROBERT (1771-1858)
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See also:OWEN, See also:ROBERT (1771-1858) , See also:English social reformer, was See also:born at See also:Newtown, See also:Montgomeryshire, in See also:North See also:Wales, on the 14th of May 1771. His See also:father had a small business in Newtown as saddler and ironmonger, and there See also:young Owen received all his school See also:education, which terminated at the See also:age of nine. After serving in a See also:draper's See also:shop for some years he settled in See also:Manchester. His success was very rapid. When only nineteen years of age he became manager of a See also:cotton See also: Connected with the mills were about two thousand people, five hundred of whom were See also:children, brought, most of them, at the age of five or six from the poor-houses and charities of See also:Edinburgh and Glasgow. The children especially had been well treated by Dale, but the See also:general See also:condition of the people was very unsatisfactory. Many of them were the lowest of the See also:population, the respectable country people refusing to submit to the See also:long See also:hours and demoralizing drudgery of the factories; See also:theft, See also:drunkenness, and other vices were See also:common; education and sanitation were alike neglected; most families lived only in one See also:room. It was this population, thus committed to his care, which Owen now set himself to elevate and ameliorate. He greatly improved their houses, and by the unsparing and benevolent exertion of his See also:personal See also:influence trained them to habits of See also:order, cleanliness and See also:thrift. He opened a See also:store, where the people could buy goods of the soundest quality at little more than cost See also:price; and the See also:sale of drink was placed under the strictest supervision. His greatest success, however, was in the education of the young, to which he devoted See also:special See also:attention. He was the founder of See also:infant See also:schools in Great Britain; and, though he was anticipated by reformers on the See also:continent of See also:Europe, he seems to have been led to See also:institute them by his own views of what education ought to be, and without hint from abroad. In all these plans Owen obtained the most gratifying success. Though at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger, he soon won the confidence of his people. The mills continued to be a great commercial success, but it is needless to say that some of Owen's schemes involved considerable expense, which was displeasing to his partners. Tired at last of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished to conduct the business on the See also:ordinary principles, Owen formed a new See also:firm, who, content with 5% of return for their See also:capital, were ready to give freer See also:scope to his philanthropy (1813). In this firm See also:Jeremy See also:Bentham and the well-known Quaker, See also: According to the unanimous testimony of all who visited it, the results achieved by Owen were singularly See also:good. The See also:manners of the children, brought up under his system, were beautifully graceful, genial and unconstrained; See also:health, plenty, and contentment prevailed; drunkenness was almost unknown, and See also:illegitimacy was extremely rare. The most perfect good feeling subsisted between Owen and his workpeople, and all the operations of the mill proceeded with the utmost smoothness and regularity; and the business was a great commercial success. Hitherto Owen's work had been that of a philanthropist, whose great distinction was the originality and unwearying unselfishness of his methods. His first departure in See also:socialism took place in 1817, and was embodied in a See also:report communicated to the See also:committee of the See also:House of See also:Commons on the poor See also:law. The general misery and stagnation of trade consequent on the termination of the great See also:war was See also:engrossing the attention of the country. After clearly tracing the special causes connected with the war which had led to such a deplorable See also:state of things, Owen pointed out that the permanent cause of See also:distress was to be found in the competition of human labour with machinery, and that the only effective remedy was the See also:united See also:action of men, and the subordination of machinery. His proposals for the treatment of See also:pauperism were based on these principles. He recommended that communities of about twelve hundred persons each should be settled on quantities of See also:land from l000 to 1500 acres, all living in one large See also:building in the See also:form of a square, with public See also:kitchen and See also:mess-rooms. Each See also:family should have its own private apartments, and the entire care of the children till the age of three, after which they should be brought up by the community, their parents having See also:access to them at meals and all other proper times. These communities might be established by individuals, by parishes, by counties, or by the state; in every See also:case there should be effective supervision• by duly qualified persons. Work, and the enjoyment of its results, should be in common. The See also:size of his community was no doubt partly suggested by his See also:village of New Lanark; and he soon proceeded to See also:advocate such a See also:scheme as the best form for the reorganization of society in general. In its fully See also:developed form—and it cannot be said to have changed much during Owen's lifetime—it was as follows. He considered an association of from goo to 3000 as the See also:fit number for a good working community. While mainly agricultural, it should possess all the best machinery, should offer every variety of employment, and should, as far as possible, be self-contained. " As these townships," as he also called them, " should increase in number, unions of them federatively united shall be formed in circles of tens, hundreds and thousands," till they should embrace the whole See also:world in a common See also:interest. His plans for the cure of pauperism were received with great favour. The Times and the See also:Morning See also:Post and many of the leading men of the country countenanced them; one of his most steadfast See also:friends was the See also:duke of See also:Kent, father of See also:Queen See also:Victoria. He had indeed gained the See also:ear of the country, and had the prospect before him of a great career as a social reformer, when he went out of his way at a large See also:meeting in See also:London to declare his hostility to all the received forms of religion. After this See also:defiance to the religious sentiment of the country, Owen's theories were in the popular mind associated with infidelity, and were henceforward suspected and discredited. Owen's own confidence, however, remained unshaken; and he was anxious that his scheme for establishing a community should be tested. At last, in 1825, such an experiment was attempted under the direction of his See also:disciple, Abram See also:Combe, at Orbiston near Glasgow; and in the next year Owen himself commenced another at New See also:Harmony (q.v.), See also:Indiana, U.S.A. After a trial of about two years both failed completely. Neither of them was a pauper experiment; but it must be said that the members were of the most See also:motley description, many worthy people of the highest aims being mixed with vagrants, adventurers, and crotchety, wrong-headed enthusiasts. After a long See also:period of See also:friction with William Allen and some of his other partners, Owen resigned all connexion with New Lanark in 1828. On his return from See also:America he made London the centre of his activity. Most of his means having been sunk in the New Harmony experiment, he was no longer a flourishing capitalist, but the See also:head of a vigorous propaganda, in which socialism and See also:secularism were combined. One of the most interesting features of the See also:movement at this period was the See also:establishment in 1832 of an equitable labour See also:exchange system, in which exchange was effected by means of labour notes, the usual means of exchange and the usual middlemen being alike superseded. The word " socialism " first became current in the discussions of the Association of all Classes of all Nations, formed by Owen in 1835. During these years also his secularistic teaching gained such influence among the working classes as to give occasion for the statement in the See also:Westminster See also:Review (1839) that his principles were the actual creed of a great portion of them. His views on marriage, which were certainly lax, gave just ground for offence. At this period some more communistic experiments were made, of which the most important were that at Ralahine, in the See also:county of See also:Clare, See also:Ireland, and that at Tytherly in See also:Hampshire. It is admitted that the former (1831) was a remarkable success for three and a See also:half years, till the proprietor, having ruined himself by gambling, was obliged to sell out. Tytherly, begun in 1839, was an See also:absolute failure. By 1846 the only permanent result of Owen's agitation, so zealously carried on by public meetings, See also:pamphlets, See also:periodicals, and occasional See also:treatises, was the co-operative movement, and for the See also:time even that seemed to have utterly collapsed. In his later years Owen became a firm believer in See also:spiritualism. He died at his native See also:town on the 17th of See also:November 1858. Owen See also:left four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale and See also:Richard, all of whom became citizens of the United States. ROBERT DALE OWEN, the eldest (1801–1877), was for long an able exponent in his adopted country of his father's doctrines. In 1836–39 and 1851–52 he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and in 1844–47 was a Representative in See also:Congress, where he drafted the See also:bill for the See also:founding of the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected a member of the Indiana Constitutional See also:Convention in 1850, and was instrumental in securing to widows and married See also:women control of their See also:property, and the See also:adoption of a common See also:free school system. He later succeeded in passing a state law giving greater freedom in See also:divorce. From 1853 to 1858 he was United States See also:minister at See also:Naples. He was a strong believer in spiritualism and was the author of two well-known books on the subject: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859) and The Debateable Land Between this World and the Next (1872). Owen's third son, DAVID DALE OWEN (1807–1860), was in 1839 appointed a United States geologist, and made extensive surveys of the north-See also:west, which were published by order of Congress. The youngest son, RICHARD OWEN (1810–189o), was a See also:professor of natural See also:science in See also:Nashville University. Of R. Owen's numerous See also:works in exposuion of nis system, the most important are the New View of Society; the Report communicated to the Committee on the Poor Law; the See also:Book of the New Moral World ; and Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human See also:Race. See See also:Life of Robert Owen written by himself (London, 1857), and •Threading my Way, Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography, by Robert Dale Owen (London, 1874). There are also Lives of Owen by A. J. See also:Booth (London, 1869), W. L. Sargant (London, 186o), See also:Lloyd See also: Dolleans, Robert Owen (See also:Paris, 1905) ; G. J. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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