Edward Carpenter | |
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_-_Edward_Carpenter_(cropped).jpg) | |
| Born | Edward Carpenter (1844-08-29)29 August 1844 |
| Died | 28 June 1929(1929-06-28) (aged 84) |
| Resting place | Mount Cemetery, Guildford, England |
| Occupations | |
| Partner | George Merrill (1891–1928) |
| Signature | |
_-_Edward_Carpenter_-_signature.png) | |
Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an Englishutopian socialist,poet,philosopher,anthologist, an early activist forgay rights[1] and prison reform whilst advocatingvegetarianism and taking a stanceagainst vivisection.[2][3] As aphilosopher, he was particularly known for his publication ofCivilisation: Its Cause and Cure. Here, he describedcivilisation as a form of disease through which human societies pass.[4]
An early advocate of sexual liberation, he had an influence on bothD. H. Lawrence[5] andSri Aurobindo, and inspiredE. M. Forster's novelMaurice.[6][7]
Born at 45 Brunswick Square,Hove inSussex, Carpenter was educated at nearbyBrighton 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 AdmiralJames Carpenter (1760–1845). 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 atTrinity Hall, Cambridge.[10] At Trinity Hall, Carpenter came under the influence ofChristian Socialist theologianF. D. Maurice.[11] Whilst there he also began to explore his feelings for men. One of the most notable examples of this is his close friendship withEdward Anthony Beck (later Master of Trinity Hall), which, according to Carpenter, had "a touch of romance".[9] Beck eventually ended their friendship, causing Carpenter great emotional heartache. Carpenter graduated as 10thWrangler in 1868.[12] After university, he was ordained ascurate of theChurch of England, "as a convention rather than out of deep Conviction",[13] and served as curate to Maurice at the parish ofSt Edward's, Cambridge.
In 1871 Carpenter was invited to become tutor to the royal princesGeorge Frederick (later King George V) and his elder brother,Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, but declined the position. His lifelong friend and fellow Cambridge studentJohn Neale Dalton took the position.[14] Carpenter continued to visit Dalton while he was tutor. They were given photographs of the pair, taken by the princes.[15]
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 thehypocrisy of Victorian society.[9] He found great solace in reading poetry, later remarking that his discovery of the work ofWalt Whitman caused "a profound change" in him.[16] Five or six years later he visited Whitman inCamden, New Jersey, in 1877.
Carpenter was voluntarily released from the Anglican ministry and left the church in 1874 and moved toLeeds, becoming alecturer as part of University Extension Movement, which was formed by academics who wished to widen access to education in deprived communities. He lectured inastronomy, the lives of ancient Greek women andmusic and had hoped to lecture to theworking classes, but found his lectures were mostly attended bymiddle class people, many of whom showed little active interest in the subjects he taught. Disillusioned,[9] he moved toChesterfield, but finding that town dull, moved to nearbySheffield 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 £760,000 in 2023[18]).[19] This enabled Carpenter to quit his lectureship to seek the simpler life, first on asmall holding at Totley near Sheffield with Albert Ferneyhough, a scythe-maker, and his family in 1880; Albert and Edward became lovers and in 1883 moved toMillthorpe, Derbyshire together with Albert's family, where Carpenter built a large new house with outbuildings in 1883 constructed of local gritstone with a slate roof, in the style of the seventeenth century.[20] There they had a small market garden and made and sold leather sandals,[21] based on the design of sandals sent to him from India byHarold Cox on Carpenter's request.[21]
Carpenter popularised the phrase the "Simple Life" in his essaySimplification of Life in his essay collectionEngland's Ideal (1887).[22] Sheffield architectRaymond 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 laterGarden 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 ofEngels,Henry Hyndman, he joined theSocial Democratic Federation (SDF) in 1883 and attempted to form a branch in the city. The group instead chose to remain independent, and became theSheffield 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 withWilliam Morris to join theSocialist League. From there he stayed withWilliam Harrison Riley while he was visitingWalt Whitman.[24]
In 1883, Carpenter published the first part ofTowards 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 theHindu scripture, theBhagavad Gita.[11][25] Expanded editions ofTowards Democracy appeared in 1885, 1892, and 1902; the complete edition ofTowards Democracy was published in 1905.[25]
In 1886–87 Carpenter was in a relationship with George Hukin, a razor grinder.[20] Carpenter lived withCecil Reddie from 1888 to 1889 and in 1889 helped Reddie foundAbbotsholme School inDerbyshire as a notably progressive alternative to the traditional public school, with the financial support of Robert Muirhead andWilliam Cassels.[26]
In May 1889, Carpenter wrote a piece in theSheffield 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 fromJudgment Day, and that it was the altar on which the lives of many thousands would be sacrificed. He said that 100,000 adults and children were struggling to find sunlight and air, enduring miserable lives, unable to breathe and dying of related illnesses.[27]
At the invitation of his Ceylonese Tamil friend,Ponnambalam Arunachalam, he travelled toCeylon andIndia, where—through Arunachalam—he met ajnani andguru fromThanjavur,Arulparananda Swamigal (originally Ramaswamy Pillai), from whom he gained deep insight intoyoga,Vedanta, andShaiva Siddhanta. Through Arulparananda's teaching on equality, he developed the conviction that socialism would bring about a revolution in human consciousness as well as in economic conditions. His account of the travel was published in 1892 asFrom Adam's Peak to Elephanta: Sketches in Ceylon and India. The book's spiritual explorations would subsequently influence the Russian authorPeter Ouspensky, who discusses it extensively in his own book,Tertium Organum (1912).
On his return from India in 1891, he metGeorge Merrill, a working-class man also from Sheffield, 22 years his junior. After the Ferneyhoughs left Millthorpe in 1893, Merrill became Carpenter's companion. The two remained partners for the rest of their lives,[20] cohabiting from 1898.[10] Merrill, the son of an engine driver, had been raised in the slums of Sheffield and had little formal education.
Carpenter remarked in his workThe Intermediate Sex:
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 oftenUranians 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 theHumanitarian League,Henry S. Salt, and his wife, Catherine;[29] the critic, essayist and sexologist,Havelock Ellis, and his wife, Edith; actor and producerBen Iden Payne; Labour activistsBruce andKatharine Glasier; writer and scholar,John Addington Symonds; and the feminist writer,Olive Schreiner.[30]
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 inMaurice.[32][31] The authorD. H. Lawrence read the manuscript ofMaurice, which was published posthumously in 1971. Carpenter's rural lifestyle and the manuscript influenced Lawrence's 1928 novelLady Chatterley's Lover which, though built around a central relationship between a man and a woman, involves a gamekeeper and a member of theupper class.[33][34]
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In 1902 Carpenter'santhology of verse and prose,Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship, was published.[35][36][37] The book was published again in 1906 byWilliam Swan Sonnenschein.[38]
In 1915, he publishedThe 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 theChrist myth theory.[39] His bookPagan and Christian Creeds was published byHarcourt, Brace and Howe in 1921.[40]
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 toGuildford, 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 thenLabour Government, headed byRamsay MacDonald, Prime Minister, whom Carpenter had known since his teenage years.[43]
In January 1928, Merrill died suddenly, having become an alcoholic 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 paralyticstroke. 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 theMount Cemetery in Guildford under a lengthy invocation written by Carpenter.[21]
His obituary inThe Times was headed "Edward Carpenter, Author and Poet",[44] though the text did also refer to his political campaigns.
Carpenter corresponded with many leading figures in political and cultural circles, among themAnnie Besant,Isadora Duncan,Havelock Ellis,Roger Fry,Mahatma Gandhi,Keir Hardie,Jack London,George Merrill,E. D. Morel,William Morris,Edward R. Pease,John Ruskin, andOlive Schreiner.[45]
Carpenter was a friend ofRabindranath Tagore, and ofWalt Whitman.[46]Aldous Huxley recommended Carpenter's pamphletCivilization: Its Cause and Cure in his bookScience, Liberty and Peace.[47] Modernist art criticHerbert Read credited Carpenter's pamphletNon-Governmental Society with converting him toanarchism.[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 fromCivilization: Its Cause and Cure in his 1911 novelThe 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, especiallyTowards 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 bookIolaus "opened up for me soul windows which had been closed".[54]
Carpenter was sometimes called "the EnglishTolstoy" and Tolstoy himself considered him "a worthy heir ofCarlyle andRuskin".[20]
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 asJeffrey Weeks andSheila Rowbotham, and some of Carpenter's works were reprinted by theGay Men's Press.[55] Carpenter's opposition topollution and cruelty to animals has resulted in some historians arguing that Carpenter's ideas anticipated the modernGreen andanimal rights movements.[56][57] Carpenter was described byFiona MacCarthy as the "Saint in Sandals", the "Noble Savage" and, more recently, the "gay godfather of the British left".[58]
Chants of Labour was a songbook for socialists, contributions to which Carpenter had solicited inThe Commonweal.[59]It comprised works byJohn Glasse,Edith Nesbit,John Bruce Glasier,Andreas Scheu,William Morris,Jim Connell,Herbert Burrows, and others.[59]
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