This panel describes Robert Owen’s efforts to create co-operative communities as a solution to poverty and inequality. After successful reforms at New Lanark, he published A New View of Society, promoting education, better living conditions, and co-operative economics as solutions to poverty and unemployment. His most notable projects included New Harmony in the U.S. and Queenwood in England, which ultimately failed, but influenced future social reform. His legacy continues through co-operative ideals and New Lanark, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This exhibition panel is from the ‘Robert Owen Utopian Legacy Exhibition’, originally held at Newtown Library in May of 2025, on the life and legacy of Robert Owen (1771-1858) the philanthropic Welsh Business & Social Entrepreneur and pioneer of infant education and the co-operative movement.