William Benjamin Carpenter
Carpenter was born on 29 Oct 1813 in Exeter, the eldest son of Dr Lant Carpenter, an important Unitarian preacher who influenced a "rising generation of Unitarian intellectuals". 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.