Edward Carpenter was born on the 29th of August 1844 in Brunswick Square, Hove. He was the seventh child of ten children. He attended Brighton College, and then Cambridge ,Trinity Hall. He was ordained a minister in the Church of England, and became a curate to the Reverend Frederick Denison Maurice, the leader of the Christian Socialist movement and founder of the Working Men's Colleges. Carpenter was unsure about his sexuallity whilst growing up in Hove and while at Cambridge also.
He hated to double standards of Victorian society, a society which covered the legs of tables, because it may make you into a sexual maniac, yet the master of a household would have a mistress and could do this with impunity.
Disillusioned, Carpenter left the church eventually and started to lecture in Sheffield with the University Extension Scheme.
This is where it gets interesting. The subjects he lectured on, was Votes for women, anti vivisection, anti pollution, the equal rights of men, better living condition for manual workers in the industrial cities.
Edward Carpenter was an early “Gay Activist” in a time when any sort of homosexual relationship was criminal offence.
It was while in Sheffield he started a homosexual relationship with George Merrill, a uneducated manual worker, Merrill moved in with Edward Carpenter, and their relationship endured until 1928 when George Merrill died.
Today, as in 1929 when Edward Carpenter died, he is largely forgotten. Why? because all the things that mattered to him have become everyday.
Carpenter was a man before his time, and I think it is about time we remembered him, not just a blue plaque in Brunswick Square.
In March 2012, Brighton and Hove Bus Company Bus No 427 on Route 1 was named after Edward Carpenter on the company's series on influential citizens.
Read more on Wikipedia: Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929)
