Robert Owen was an industrialist who initiated a comprehensive program of social and educational reforms, including the introduction of the first infant school, a creche for working mothers, free education for all of his child laborers and children of laborers, universal healthcare for his workers, and evening classes for adults. In 1825, Owen bought around 30,000 acres of land in Indiana. He called it ‘New Harmony’ and tried to create a cooperative workers’ utopia, but the cooperative community fragmented and then stagnated. He had more success in founding socialist and cooperative groups, such as the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union of 1834 and the Association of All Classes of All Nations in 1835, cementing his credentials as an early socialist.

Owenites regarded political economists as their archenemy. Mill and his friends had a series of debates with a society of Owenites called the Co-operative Society, dismissing the belief as irrational. Later, when Mill was acquainted with St. Simonian socialism, he evaluated it against Owen’s socialism and decided that St. Simonianism was more desirable.

Sources:

MacEwen, Terry. “Robert Owen, Father of British Socialism.” Historic UK. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofWales/Robert-Owen-Father-British-Socialsm/

Mill, John Stuart. Autobiography.