Mary Carpenter
| Mary Carpenter | |
|---|---|
Portrait photograph of Mary Carpenter in later life.
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| Born |
3 April 1807 Exeter, United Kingdom |
| Died | 14 June 1877 (aged 70) Bristol, United Kingdom |
| Resting place |
Arnos Vale Cemetery, Bristol Coordinates: 51°26′06″N 2°33′54″W / 51.435°N 2.565°W |
| Residence | Bristol |
| Years active | 1835–1877 |
| Known for | Education, Social reform |
| Parent(s) | Lant Carpenter, Anna Penn |
| Relatives |
William Benjamin Carpenter (brother) Philip Pearsall Carpenter (brother) Russell Lant Carpenter (brother) |
Mary Carpenter (3 April 1807 – 14 June 1877) 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. 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 and has a memorial in the North transept of Bristol Cathedral.
Carpenter was born in 1807, in Exeter, the first child of 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. He 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 what had by now become Mrs Carpenter's Boarding School for Young Ladies.
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