Lant Carpenter, LL. D., an English clergyman, born at Kidderminster, Sept. 2,1780, died April 5,1840. He was of a nonconformist family, and at an early age was adopted and educated by Mr. Pearsall, a relative of his mother. Designed for the ministry, he was sent in 1797 to the Northampton academy. That school being temporarily discontinued, he was placed at Glasgow college. Leaving college in 1801 without his degree, he spent some time in teaching, and as librarian of the Athenaeum, Liverpool. While at the academy he became imbued with liberal religious views, and at Liverpool he allied himself with the Unitarian denomination, receiving several invitations to the pastoral charge of Unitarian congregations, and a call to a professorship in their college at York. In 1805 he finally accepted a call to succeed Dr. Thomas Kenrick at Exeter, where he continued for 12 years. From Exeter he removed to the pastoral charge of the Unitarian congregation at Bristol (1817), where he continued with a short interval until his death, which occurred by falling overboard between Naples and Leghorn, while on a tour for his health. His piety was of an eminently practical turn.

The instruction of children was an object of constant interest, and he established Sunday schools among the children of Exeter and Bristol. Among his more important works are "An Introduction to the Geography of the New Testament," "Unitarianism the Doctrine of the Gospel," "Examination of the Charges against Unitarianism," "Harmony of the Gospels," and a volume of sermons.