ABSTRACT
Robert Owen, pioneer of many movements, was born in 1771. He enjoyed his childhood, and had evidently from the first the knack of making friends. His memories were nearly all pleasant memories: he was happy at home and happy among his associates. Young Owen, moreover, passed his childhood amid scenes and men unaffected by the great change. Methodism and rival religious doctrines and ways of life had, however, as they reached young Owen in his early days, no social or political significance. Robert Owen was, from first to last, a deeply religious person, not least when he was denouncing all the creeds, and earning the reputation of an infidel and a materialist. This must be understood if his life is to be understood as a plain and coherent whole. Owen’s Autobiography, written towards the very end of his long life, relates many incidents of his childhood at Newtown.
