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Back to article: LANT CARPENTER (1780-1840)

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CARPENTER, LANT (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.