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New Lanark, New Society |
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Owen's Philosophy:
"What ideas individuals may attach to the term "Millennium" I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold: and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal".
(Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark, New Year 1816)
© SCRAN
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Owen was born in Wales in 1771, the son of a saddler. After receiving some schooling he entered the drapery business and by the age of sixteen he found work at a large wholesale and retail drapery business in Manchester. This time, Manchester proved to be an epiphany for the young man. Not only was the town experiencing a massive boom as the result of the new technologies in textile manufacture, but it was also a hotbed of Liberal and Radical thought, and Owen found himself involved in both spheres.
His career took off in Manchester and he soon became manager of a large cotton mill in the city, but perhaps more importantly he became a prominent figure in the city's intellectual life. As a result of his membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, he became friends with reformers such as the poet Coleridge, John Dalton the chemist, and Dr Percival, a pioneer of public health reform. Then, in 1796, when the Manchester Board of Health was formed, he was asked to sit on the committee as the representative of the textile industry.
Owen's principal belief was that a person's character was formed by the environment that they lived in, and that, therefore, happy and contented workers, with decent living conditions and with an education behind them, would perform better than those who were brow-beaten, housed in slums and denied access to advancement through education. In essence, he argued that man was intrinsically good until corrupted by maltreatment. Owen was not alone in his philosophy, as many in Scottish philosophical circles, such as Lord Kames, Francis Hutcheson and Adam Smith, had been advocating similar theories throughout the 18th Century.
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