Mary [Browne] Carpenter to Frederick Douglass, January 26, 1868
Bridport. Dorsetshire
January 26th 1868
My dear Mr Douglass
How often ICarpenter, Mary Browne
Mary Browne Carpenter (c. 1824–98) was the wife of the prominent Unitarian minister Russell Lant Carpenter (1819–92). They were married in Bridgwater, Somersetshire, in 1853. She was one of four daughters born to William Browne, a wealthy Unitarian merchant, and his wife, Mary. William Browne served as mayor of Bridgwater in 1854. In addition to her support of the antislavery effort, Mary Browne Carpenter was also deeply involved in the woman suffrage movement, belonging to one of the more radical suffrage societies in Bridport. She also supported the animal rights and temperance movements. 1841 England Census, Gloucestershire, Bristol, 22; “England and Wales, Christening Records, 1530–1906,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Death Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Marriage Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch. org; “England and Wales, Non-Conformist Records Indexes, 1588–1977,” FamilySearch.org; Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey (New York, 2006), 161, 169.She has not been identified by name.
have thanked you in thought for your last long, delightful, &, as ever, welcome letter, (dated June 1867)! & how after Mr. Carpenter & I have talked of you, and rejoiced at the occasional news of your prosperity which has reached us & said I would certainly write to you, & assure you of our warm sympathy in your joys and successes as well as in your anxieties & trials. Amongst the deep joy which have been yours during the last year I must congratulate you on that of welcoming a brother's family in safely from the South. Mrs Crofts told me that you had built a house for them close to your own, so I suppose these newly-found relatives
are now comfortably settled down by your side, & tasting some of the sweets of life after many sorrows & hardships what true happiness it must be to you to have recovered them & to have them near you in freedom & comfort.—I do not know when or where you met with your brother.—Your life has been full of strange adventures, sad partings, wonderful meetings, bitter woes, & thrilling joys such as we scarcely know any thing of except in books of fiction! I suppose you won't die of ennui if you had to wait in the quiet slow way that we do in this little country town of the west of England; but tho’ it might not agree with you as a permanent residence. I am convinced that it would be the best thing
in appearance & situation. We have some very pleasant friends here to whom I should like to introduce you. I should have to warn you that they are rather Southern in their tendencies for which we laugh at them, they don't mean or do any harm by it! it comes from their not having met any of the right sort of people from America; but they have a generous appreciation for what is good & great when they do meet with it. I hear we are within 20 miles of friends whom you just saw (not much more) on your first visit to England—my dear brother is still living with my eldest sister & her husband; and their oldest children, who were babies when you saw them, are grown up.—Edith Olie
oldest girl is very pretty as well as sensible,—she and her brother William, who is now studying at Oxford, were here last week attending a Ball. They went with us on Wednesday Evg. to hear a lecture on the present condition of the Freedmen by a Mr W. Forten Michell, who is traveling with Mr Albright of Birmingham, & holding meetings to interest people in the establishment of training schools for colored teachers for the children of the freedmen. The object is a very good one, & I hope we shall raise a small sum here in aid of it but it will be only a small sum, as trade is bad at present, & likely to be worse, so that people are feeling that they must reserve themselves for home calls.
To live there, which is very pleasant for us. Our mutual friend Miss Amié DrazAmé-Draz, Rosine
A Swiss national, Rosine Amé-Draz (c. 1816–?) first arrived in England on 11 July 1838, listing her profession as teacher. In 1841 she was teaching and living in the parish of Egg Buckland, Devonshire. After spending an undetermined length of time back in Switzerland, she returned to England in July 1848, this time listing her profession as governess. According to the 1861 English Census (where she was recorded as “Rosine Ann Davy,” a native of Neufchatel, Switzerland), she was staying in the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Read of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire. By 1871 she was serving as governess to the children of George S. Kemp, a wealthy Lancashire manufacturer. 1841 England Census, Devonshire, Egg Buckland, 11; 1861 England Census, Yorkshire, Ecclesfield, 56; 1871 England Census, Lancashire, Castleton, 1; “England, Alien Arrivals, 1810–1811, 1826–1869,” Ancestry.com.
spends much of her time at Bournemouth in Hampshire she came to us for two or three days last Easter—she is a very interesting woman, & we much enjoyed her society—She & I sent you a joint letter which I fancy you never received. No great loss,—only one likes letters to reach the people they were intended for!
When you wrote (June 67) you were recruiting after a season of hard travelling & speaking; ten thousand miles & a hundred speeches "since last fall" you said you had accomplished! one feels quite knocked up with hearing of so much work! no wonder you
returned home exhausted in body & mind the wonder rather is that either mind or body could endure such a strain for so long.—You said that you must soon leave home again for a trip to the Southern States.—I should like very much to hear something of this trip, if you took it. Now that we get no paper from you we hear but little of your movements, excepting from your letters, (& you know they are like angels visits few & far between;) & an occasional mention of you in some English Papers, as when last Spring Mr Carpenter saw yr name in "The Times," as he was sincerely glad to do, in a list of public men mentioned in the income tax returns as making $1000 a year! Then again Mrs Crofts once now & then sends.
us a bit of news of you,—but still we don't hear half as much as we want to. I wonder whether you have been to the South counselling & helping the now free colored people. I was very glad to hear such good accounts of all your sons as you sent us—the two oldest were in Colorado, printing, but were bound for the mines—I hope they have not been disappointed. Is your youngest son still in the Freedmen's Bureau, his work must be an interesting one. I am glad that your daughter is settled near you the grandchildren must be objects of interest to you Whenever you are at home & at leisure.
Mr Carpenter & I spent a few days at Halifax last June amongst our old friends' and
by a piece of great good fortune Mrs Crofts was there for a few hours one day she was visiting friends in Yorkshire So we met;—she was so busy that we had very little time together,—it was just a rush & I like to have my friends all to myself & get a quiet ? chat after long separation, but still it was very nice to get a glimpse of hershe was looking very well. She is now farther off than ever, as they have moved northward, & we South—I am glad to find that she likes their new home & surroundings. If this letter reaches you do if you can with any Convenience write Lora?, & let us hear of you all—& mention by which steamer we may expect you—With kind regards to Mrs. Douglas I remain sincerely & affectionately your friend Mary CarpenterCarpenter, Mary Browne
Mary Browne Carpenter (c. 1824–98) was the wife of the prominent Unitarian minister Russell Lant Carpenter (1819–92). They were married in Bridgwater, Somersetshire, in 1853. She was one of four daughters born to William Browne, a wealthy Unitarian merchant, and his wife, Mary. William Browne served as mayor of Bridgwater in 1854. In addition to her support of the antislavery effort, Mary Browne Carpenter was also deeply involved in the woman suffrage movement, belonging to one of the more radical suffrage societies in Bridport. She also supported the animal rights and temperance movements. 1841 England Census, Gloucestershire, Bristol, 22; “England and Wales, Christening Records, 1530–1906,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Death Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch.org; “England and Wales, Marriage Index, 1837–1915,” FamilySearch. org; “England and Wales, Non-Conformist Records Indexes, 1588–1977,” FamilySearch.org; Elizabeth Crawford, The Women’s Suffrage Movement in Britain and Ireland: A Regional Survey (New York, 2006), 161, 169.She has not been identified by name.
I am glad to tell you that Mr Carpenter had not had any return of serious illness since that which laid him by—as far as work was concerned—for nearly six months two years ago. He is however more of an invalid than when you saw him. He has now an assistant minister who shares the duty with him, & except on rare occasions Mr C does not preach more than once on a Sunday,—& he finds that quite enough for his strength. He has not been writing on American affairs for some time, indeed scarcely at all since his illness but he is English Correspondent to the Xtian Register, our denominational national paper at Boston, & sends a letter to it about once in six weeks generally however [on] religious or educational subjects.
Miss CarpenterCarpenter, Mary
Mary Carpenter (1807-77) was the daughter of British reformer and Unitarian minister Lant Carpenter, and with her brother Philip Lant Carpenter, was a social justice activist. She began operating a girls' school in Bristol in 1829 with the help of her mother, Anna Penn Carpenter. Finding the care of poor children her life's calling, in 1835 Mary formed the Working and Visiting Society and in 1852 opened her own reformatory for boys. In the 1850s and 1860s she lobbied for industrial schooling in Britain and opened two schools of her own. In her later years she traveled widely and lectured in Britain and India on education and penal reform.
She was inspired to visit India as a result of her father’s friendship with Rammohun Roy, a Bengalese teacher and religious educator who established the Brahmo Samaj, a brotherhood made up of Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Roy visited Mary’s father, Lant Carpenter, at the Lewis Mead Unitarian Church in Bristol, but died shortly afterward from meningitis in 1833. Mary visited India four times, where she established a school for Hindu girls and became active in social reform.
Jo Manton, Mary Carpenter and the Children of the Streets (London, 1976), 18-30; Jennifer S. Uglow, ed., The International Dictionary of Womens Biography (New York, 1982), 94; Mary Carpenter, Six Months in India (London, 1868).ACAB, 1:531-32; DNB, 3:1068-70, 1071-72; DAB, 1:561.
of Bristol has
for the last two or three years been interesting herself very warmly about the education of women in India she went out to India a little more than a year ago, & spent six months in visiting Institutions (schools, prisons &c) & people in Bombay, Madras, Calcutta, & various other places. She returned to England more persuaded than ever that much might as well as ought to be done for the improvement & elevation of the Hindoo women. She is now very busy preparing a book on her Indian experiences for publication, & talks of going out again before long. Another sister of my husband's, Mrs Robert Gaskell, is now living at Weymouth, a pleasant watering place only 20 miles from Bridport. Mr Gaskell has bought a house there & brought his wife & daughters
in the world for you to come and vegetate with us for a time. When you left England 8 years ago you promised to return in two months!! Yes, I believe you said two months,—of course I never thought you would do that. But I did hope that you wld come in a year or two. Then came your horrible war which however one cannot altogether regret, so much good has come out of it, but that is over, (the war not the resulting good I mean) and now I want to know when you next write, when are you coming? It is no good to wait until there is no work for you to do at home, of course that time will never come. The slaves are free,—that is the great thing,—& you have the great happiness of knowing that you have done work
than most men to bring about their freedom, & to secure them equal rights when free and now I opine that you ought to take a holiday, & pay another visit to your English friends. I think you will quite enjoy the pretty country round Bridport—our house is within two miles of the sea, there is nothing grand in the scenery here, but it is very pretty, fine sea, (that of course is grand, picturesque cliffs, an undulating country of hill & valley that is very pleasing.—We have just removed into a house that we like much better than the one we first occupied on coming to Bridport, it is not much larger than the one you visited us in at Halifax but it is decidedly more attractive