The Robert Owen Museum celebrates the life and works of Robert Owen, born in Newtown, Mid Wales, in 1771 and died there in 1858. Robert Owen is chiefly associated with New Lanark, A New View of Society, New Harmony and The New Moral World. (The word “New” is common to them all.)

New Lanark was a large cotton-spinning establishment on the River Clyde, thirty miles above Glasgow. Robert Owen was Manager of the mills and workers’ village from 1800 to 1824. He much improved the workers’ conditions and built splendid new schools for their children. The establishment made him a rich man.

Robert Owen wrote A New View of Society in 1812-13. He cited the improvements in the character of the New Lanark population as proof of his doctrine that character is made for man, not by him. He urged universal primary education and public works to solve unemployment. The book was much read.

New Harmony was a small town founded by a German sect in the wilderness of Indiana, USA. Robert Owen bought it in 1825 for an experiment in co-operative living. The settlers were a mixed bunch and co-operation failed. However, Owen’s children remained at New Harmony, and it became a beacon of culture.

Robert Owen brought out The Book of the New Moral World in the 1840s. It is a compendium of society as Owen believed it should be, based on grass roots socialism and not a little anarchy. His views on marriage, compassionate for the time, gained the Owenites unwanted notoriety.

Robert Owen’s followers were the first “Socialists”. He is regarded as the founder of the Co-operative movement, which reveres Robert Owen to this day.