Mary Carpenter, “On the Importance of Statistics to the Reformatory Movement, with Returns from Female Reformatories,” 1857

Mary Carpenter was an educationalist and penal reformer. As the eldest child of Unitarian minister, Lant Carpenter, she grew up in the milieu of English puritanism, developing a strong sense of religious vocation and mission. She was active in the anti-slavery movement. At the Birmingham conference on delinquency in 1851, the meeting agreed with Carpenter that there should be three types of school: ragged, industrial, and reformatory, for the different needs of children. In the same year, Carpenter published Reformatory Schools for the Children of the Perishing and Dangerous Classes, and for Juvenile Offenders, which brought her into communion with the larger reformatory movement.