ABSTRACT

Before discussing the new communities established by Robert Owen and his followers, it is important to acknowledge that there was an earlier tradition of communitarianism both in England and in the United Sates. The Moravian church was a form of primitive Christianity, descended from a sect that had followed the Bohemian Protestant, Jan Hus. The literature on the Owenite settlements is so extensive that it would be superfluous to seek to provide a new assessment of their achievements. It is sufficient to state that the chronology above is sufficiently explicit to make it clear that none of the projects were viable in the medium term. A reading of Cullen on Orbiston demonstrates the optimism of Owen's 1830 statement given above was somewhat unfounded. Owen was not the first writer to promote home colonies. Quaker William Allen was to establish a charity school at Lindfield in Sussex, where the children operated a commercial printing press.