• Name: Owen, Robert
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 14  May  1771
• Death Date: 17  November  1858
• Occupation: socialist
• Occupation: philanthropist

See DNB.

Owen, Robert (1771–1858), socialist and philanthropist. There is wide agreement that Godwin and Owen are in frequent contact between 1813 and 1818. Moreover, the first entries in 1813 are to Owen of Lanark, which suggests that he isreferring to someone whose connection with Lanark is already significant.. This has led us not to code earlier entries to Owen (bunching in 1805) as references to this Owen. While it is true that Owen left Scotland at some point at this time to visit Wales, there is no evidence of any London visit, and Godwin's diary has concentrated visits in April and May but also others in January and November. Accordingly, in the absence of fuurther evidence, these early entries remain uncoded. It should also be noted that Godwin is reading from a text that he describes as 'Davies, Owen cala' when he meets Owen in 1805, and there are no writings from Robert Owen at this time. This might refer to Edward Davies Celtic Researches on the Origins, Traditions, and Language of the Ancient Britains (1804) which refers to the discovery of an original British alphabet by a Mr Owen.

The first eeting does seem unequivocally to be in 1813. 'At a dinner given for him in January 1813 by a Scot, Daniel Stuart, a supporter of the Tory government and proprietor of a newspaper, the Courier, he met William Godwin ... Godwin introduced Owen to the great Radical, Francis Place' pp. 115-6 - Ian Donnachie, 'Robert Owen: Social Visionary' (2000)

The entry for 1822 seems doubtful although possible - it is a single entry, with Owen accompanying Marshall (9 April 1822). The next entry is on 13 April 1824, again a single entry for 'R Owen calls', which given Robert Owen's movements might well be to his son Robert Dale Owen. The entries in 1827 are mixed. The January entry might be Owen, but there's no supporting evidence. The entries in October to Dale Owen and Fra(nces) Wright and subsequent references that year link Wright, plural Owens, or Dale Owen together, refer to a visit to London by Wright and Owen junr to London, following a period in Wrights American utopian community. These have been coded on the assumption that Owen is present when the initial is absent, and that Dale Owen is included in Owens, but that Wright is mentioned separately (however, it this is a surmise and it goes against suggestions that Dale Own had broken with his father by this period).

Robert Owen returns to London in 1830 and begins a course of lectures. Entries to Owen in the diary are common in 1831 and 1832. There is then a break until 1835 when Owen is again in London organising the Association of All Classes of All Nations, later renamed the Universal Community Society of Rational Religionists, or Rational Society. Nothing in the contacts suggest that this might be other than Robert Owen in these years.

• DNB
• Ian Donnachie 'The life of Robert Owen written by himself', 2 vols. (1857–8),
• Ian Donnachie 'Robert Owen: Social Visionary' (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2005)
• GDH Cole,The Life of Robert Owen (3rd ed., London: Cass, 1965)
• Frank PodmoreRobert Owen: A Biography', 2 vols. (London: Hutchinson, 1906)
• Robert Dale Owen,Threading My Way, 27 Years of Autobiography (London, 1874)
• St ClairThe Godwins and the Shelleys

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.

• Name: Owen, Robert Dale
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date: 7  November  1801
• Death Date: 24  June  1877
• Occupation: social reformer

See entry for Robert Owen A letter to Mary Shelley survives. Godwin meets Robert Dale Owen in 1827, and also seems to have had contact with him at the end of 1832.

• MS. Abinger c. 48, fols. 64-5 :5 Jan. 1830
• DNB

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.