Associations, Influence and Views
Among Frend's pupils were Edward Daniel Clarke, Ada Lovelace, John Singleton Copley, and Robert Malthus; he was himself the last of ‘the learned anti-Newtonians and a noted oppugner of all that distinguishes Algebra from Arithmetic.’ In Cambridge the leading intellectual dissenters formed a circle including George Dyer, Benjamin Flower, Robert Hall and Robert Tyrwhitt, as well as Frend and Robert Robinson.
A Unitarian and a Whig by conviction, reformers such as Francis Burdett and John Horne Tooke were his friends, and he maintained an active correspondence with the main supporters of radicalism. Francis Place acknowledged an intellectual debt to Frend. Frend's Unitarian network, as well as the group round Priestley, included James Gifford the elder and Robert Hibbert. When it came to Godwin, Frend like others had difficulties with his atheism.
He was frequently consulted by Palmer in support of his claim for a public grant for his services in improving the transmission of letters. Frend thought that the rate of postage should be reduced to a fixed charge of 2d. or 1d., and drew up a statement to that effect which reached a member of Robert Peel's cabinet, but nothing came of it at that time.
Read more about this topic: William Frend (social Reformer)
Famous quotes containing the words influence and/or views:
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselves as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more—an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)