LANT

CARPENTER (1780-1840)  , English Unitarian minister, was born at Kidderminster on the and of September 1780, the son of a carpet manufacturer . After some months at a non-conformist academy at Northampton, he proceeded to Glasgow University, and then joined the ministry . After a short time as assistant master at a Unitarian school near Birmingham, he was in 1802 appointed librarian at the Liverpool Athenaeum . In 18o5 he became pastor of a church in Exeter, removing in 1817 to Bristol . At both Bristol and Exeter he was also engaged in school work, among his Bristol pupils being Harriet and James Martineau . Carpenter did much to broaden the spirit of English Unitarianism . The rite of baptism seemed to him a superstition, and he substituted for it a form of infant. dedication . His health, undermined by his constant labours, broke down in 1839, and he was ordered to travel . He was drowned on the night of the 5th of April 184o, having been washed overboard from the steamer in which he was travelling from Leghorn to Marseilles .