Life
Carpenter was born on 29 Oct 1813 in Exeter, the eldest son of Dr Lant Carpenter and his wife, Anna Carpenter (née Penn). His father was an important Unitarian preacher who influenced a "rising generation of Unitarian intellectuals, including James Martineau and the Westminster Review's John Bowring." From his father, Carpenter inherited a belief in the essential lawfulness of the creation: this meant that natural causes were the explanation of the world as we find it. William embraced this "naturalistic cosmogeny" as his starting point.
Carpenter was apprenticed to the eye surgeon John Bishop Estlin, who was also the son of a Unitarian minister, and accompanied him to the West Indies in 1833. He attended medical classes at University College London (1834–35), and then went to the University of Edinburgh (1835–39), where he received his MD in 1839. Later, in 1861, he also received an LL.D. from the University of Edinburgh.
On his resignation in 1879, Carpenter was appointed CB in recognition of his services to education. He died on 19 Nov 1885 in London, from burn injuries occasioned by the accidental upsetting of the fire heating a vapour bath he was taking. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: William Benjamin Carpenter
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“He is asleep. He knows no longer the fatigue of the work of deciding, the work to finish. He sleeps, he has no longer to strain, to force himself, to require of himself that which he cannot do. He no longer bears the cross of that interior life which proscribes rest, distraction, weaknesshe sleeps and thinks no longer, he has no more duties or chores, no, no, and I, old and tired, oh! I envy that he sleeps and will soon die.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“One might feel that, at my age, I should look on life with more gravity. After all, I’ve been privileged to listen, firsthand, to some of the most profound thinkers of my day ... who were all beset by gloom over the condition the world had gotten into. Then why can’t I view it with anything but amusement?”
—Anita Loos (1894–1981)
“... aside from the financial aspect, [there] is more: the life of my work. I feel that is all I came into the world for, and have failed dismally if it is not a success.”
—Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930)