Thomas Day

Thomas Day (22 June 1748 – 28 September 1789) was an English writer, lawyer and abolitionist. He was well known for the book The History of Sandford and Merton (1783–1789) which emphasized Rousseauvian educational ideals, for his writings against slavery, for campaigning both for and against American independence, and for his project applying his educational ideals to young girls with the aim of raising a wife for himself.

Early life

Day was born on 22 June 1748 in London, the only child of Thomas and Jane Day. His father died when he was about a year old, but left him wealthy. He first attended a school in Stoke Newington, Middlesex, where the family lived at what is now 109-111 Church Street, but after a bout of smallpox which left his face permanently scarred he was moved to Charterhouse School. He subsequently attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he became a master debater and developed a close friendship with William Jones; he did not graduate and left the college in 1767.

Life

Day moved back to his family estate at Barehill, Berkshire, in 1766. There he met the progressive educator and inventor Richard Lovell Edgeworth, from whom he became almost inseparable. Together they resolved to educate Edgeworth's son, Dick, in the style of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile. Edgeworth and the project converted Day to Rousseauism. He declared in 1769 that the two books he would save, were all the world's books to be destroyed, would be the Bible and Emile. Day, Edgeworth and his son would later visit Rousseau in France. Because of his connection with Edgeworth, Day joined the Lunar Society in Lichfield, despite describing himself as a philosopher rather than a scientist, and formed friendships with Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward.