The life of Robert Owen: Recollections of my early life

RECOLLECTIONS OF MY EARLY LIFE As it appears in the family great Bible, I was born in Newtown, Montgomeryshire, North Wales, on the 14th of May, 1771, and was baptized on the 12th of June following. My father was Robert Owen. He was born in Welsh ,Pool, and was brought up to be a saddler, and probably an ironmonger also, as these two trades were at that period often united in the small towns on the borders of Wales. He married into the family of Williams, a numerous family, who were in my childhood among the most respectable farmers around Newtown. I think my mother (who was deemed beautiful, as I was informed, when she was married) was the eldest sister of the family, and, for her class, superior in mind and manner. I suppose that on their marriage they settled in Newtown,my father taking up his own calling as a saddler and ironmonger. He was also postmaster as long as he lived. He had the general management of the parish affairs, being better acquainted, as it appears, WIth its finances and business, than any other party in the township. I never thought of inquiring of him for any particulars respecting his father or mother, both being dead before I was born; and owing to the then very bad state of the roads there was comparatively little communication for young persons between Newtown and Welsh Pool. All that I can recollect respecting my father's family is, hearing my father say, in a conversation with older members of the family, that he lost an estate of the value of five hundred pounds a year in a lawsuit, which he afterwards ascertained was lost through his own lawyer being bribed. Newtown was at this period a very small market town, not containing more than one thousand inhabitants, a neat, clean, beautifully situated country village, rather than a town, with the ordinary trades, but no manufactures except a very few flannel looms. I have not seen it since this clean village has been converted into a dirty but thriving manufacturing town of some consequence. At this period there was a bridge of wood over the river Severn, which I remember with a deep impression, having nearly lost my life upon it, as I will relate hereafter. I was the youngest but one of a family of seven, two of whom died young. The survivors,-William, Anne, and John- were older, and Richard was younger than myself. The principal adjacent estate was Newtown Hall, at the period of my birth and for a few years afterwards the property and residence of Sir John Powell Price, Bart.; and my first recollection is of Sir John opening a glass door which divided my father's shop from the dwelling part of the house, and setting a bird flying towards us, saying there was something for the children's amusement, and they must take care of it. This must have been shortly before he left his estate, I suppose from being in debt, for it soon passed into other hands. My next recollection is being in school in apartments in the mansion of this estate, and a Mr.Thickness, or some such name, was the schoolmaster. I must have been sent young to school,-probably at between four and five years of age, - for I cannot remember first going there. But I recollect being very anxious to be first in school and first home, and the boys had always a race from the school to the town, and, being a fast runner, I was usually at home the first, and almost always the first at school in the morning. On one occasion my haste nearly cost me my life. I used to have for breakfast a basin of flummery, -a food prepared in Wales from flour, and eaten with milk, and which is usually given to children as the Scotch use oatmeal porridge. It is pleasant and nutritious, and is generally liked by young persons. I requested that this breakfast might be always ready when I returned from school, so that I might eat it speedily, in order to be the first back again to school. One morning, when about five years old, I ran home as usual from school, found my basin of flummery ready, and as I supposed sufficiently cooled for eating, for no heat appeared to arise from it. It had skinned over as when quite cold; but on my hastily taking a spoonful of it, I found it was quite scalding hot, the body of it retaining all its heat. The consequence was an mstant fainting, from the stomach being scalded. In that state I remained so long, that my parents thought life was extinct. However, after a considerable period I revived; but from that day my stomach became incapable of digesting food, except the most simple and in small quantity at a time. This made me attend to the effects of different qualities of food on my changed constitution, and gave me the habit of close observation and of continual reflection; and I have always thought that this accident had a great influence in forming my character. In schools in these small towns it was considered a good education if one could read fluently, write a legible hand, and understand the four first rules of arithmetic. And this I have reason to believe was the extent of Mr.Thickness's qualification for a schoolmaster,-because when I had acquired these small rudiments of learning, at the age of seven, he applied to my father for permission that I should become his assistant and usher, as from that time I was called while I remained in school. And thenceforward my schooling was to be repaid by my ushership. As I remained at school about two years longer, those two years were lost to me, except that I thus early acquired the habit of teaching others what I knew. But at this period I was fond of and had a strong passion for reading everything which fell in my way. As I was known to and knew every family in the town, I had the libraries of the clergyman, physician, and lawyer -the learned men of the town- thrown open to me, with permission to take home any volume which I liked, and I made full use of the liberty given to me. Among the books which I selected at this period were Robinson Crusoe, Philip Quarle, Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost, Harvey's Meditations among the Tombs, Young's Night Thoughts, Richardson's, and all other standard novels. I believed every word of them to be true, and was therefore deeply interested; and I generally finished a volume daily. Then I read Cook's and all the circnmnavigators' voyages, The History of the World, Rollin's Ancient History, and all the lives I could meet with of the philosophers and great men. At this period, probably when I was between eight and nine years of age, three maiden ladies became intimate in our family, and they were Methodists. They took a great fancy to me, and gave me many of their books to read. As I was religiously inclined, they were very desirous to convert me to their peculiar faith. I read and studied the books they gave me with great attention; but as I read religious works of all parties, I became surprised, first at the opposition between the different sects of Christians, afterwards at the deadly hatred between the Jews, Christians, Mahomedans, Hindoos, Chinese, etc. etc., and between these and what they called Pagans and Infidels. The study of these contending faiths, and their deadly hatred to each other' began to create doubts in my mind respecting the truth of anyone of these divisions. While studying and thinking with great earnestness upon these subjects, I wrote three sermons, and I was called the little parson. These sermons I kept until I met with Sterne's works, in which I found among his sermons three so much like them in idea and turn of mind, that it occurred to me as I read them that I should be considered a plagiarist, and with- out thought, as I could not bear any such suspicion, I hastily threw them into the fire; which I often after regretted, as I should like to know now how I then thought and expressed myself on such subjects. But certain it is that my reading religious works, combined with my other readings, compelled me to feel strongly at ten years of age that there must be something fundamentally wrong in all religions, as they had been taught up to that period. . During my childhood, and for many years afterwards, it never occurred to me that there was anything in my habits, thoughts, and actions different from those of others of my age; but when looking back and comparing my life with many others, I have been induced to attribute any favourable difference to the effects produced at the early period when my life was endangered by the spoonful of scalding flummery. Because from that time I was compelled to notice the effects produced by different kinds of food on my constitution, which had been also deeply injured in its powers of digestion. I could not eat and drink as others of my age, and I was thus compelled to live in some respects the life of a hermit as regards temperance. I entered, however, into the amusements of those of my own standing, and followed the games played by boys at that period in that part of the country-such as marbles, hand and foot ball, etc. I also attended the dancing school for some time, and in all these games and exercises I excelled not only those of my own age, but those two or three years older, and I was so active that I was the best runner and leaper, both as to height and distance, in the school. I attempted also to learn music, and to play upon the clarionet, and during my noviciate, as my father's house was in the middle of the principal street, I fear I must have annoyed all the neighbourhood, -for my " God Save the King" and similar tunes were heard almost allover the town. But I do not recollect that any formal complaint was ever made. I was too much of a favourite with the whole town for my benefit, and was often pitted against my equals, and sometimes against my superiors in age,- sometimes for one thing and sometimes for another. I have often reflected since how unjust such proceedings are in principle, and how injurious in practice. One instance of this made a deep impression on my mind. Some party bet with another that I could write better than my next eldest brother, John, who was two years older; and upon a formal trial, at which judges were appointed, it was decided that my writing was the better, although as far as I could then form an opinion I thought my brother's was as good as my own. From that day I do not think my brother had as strong an affection for me as he had before this unwise competition. I have said that such competitions are unjust, because, as no two organizations are the same, there can be no just comparison between the competing efforts of any two individuals, -while the successful one is thus taught vanity, and the unsuccessful, jealousy and hatred. When between six and eight years of age, I was often a visitor at Parson Drake's, of the Rowe, who was the rector or vicar of an adjoining parish -I think it was the parish with the name of which I have often amused myself with my English, Scotch, and other friends, by asking them, when speaking of it, to pronounce it after my spelling it, or to spell it after my pronunciation. This puzzling name is spelled thus, Llanllwchaioin. Those accustomed to it can easily pronounce it; but not those who are unacquainted with Welsh names and the mode of spelling them. ...

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This html version is presented by Massimo Portolani after the 1857-1858 edition