In 1828, after a long period of friction with William Allen and some of his other partners, Owen resigned all connection with New Lanark, and made his headquarters in London. Before he established New Harmony, U.S.A., he had begun to turn to the workers for support for his ideas. In his Report to the County of Lanark (a body of landowners) in 1820, he declared definitely that not reforms but a transformation of the social order was required. The appeal of such a doctrine to the workers is obvious. From 1820, his proposals for communities attracted the younger workers, brought up under the factory system, and between 1820 and 1830 numerous societies were formed and papers started to advocate his views. The growth of trade unionism and the emergence of a working-class point of view caused Owen's doc trines to be accepted as the expression of the workers' aspirations. When he returned to England in 1829 he found himself regarded as their leader. In the trade unions, Owenism stimulated the formation of self-governing workshops, and their need for a market led to the formation of "The Equitable Labour Exchange" in 1832.
Here Owen applied his principle that labour is the source of all wealth. Prices were calculated according to the cost of raw material and the time expended in making the article, and "Labour Notes" were used as the currency for dealings with the Exchange. After a few months of prosperity, rapacious demands from the landlord and the fact that the prices did not correspond with real exchange value brought the Labour Exchange to an end. The unprecedented growth of trade unions made it seem possible that the separate industries and eventually all industry might be organized by these bodies. Owen and his followers carried out an ardent propaganda all over the country, with the result that the new National Operative Builders Union turned itself into a Guild to carry on the building industry, and the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union was formed (1833-4). The en thusiasm and the numbers joining were remarkable, but the deter mined opposition of the employers and the severe repression by the Government and law courts, ended the movement in a few months. It was two generations before socialism, which was first popularly discussed at this time, again influenced trade unionism.
Throughout these years Owen's community ideas maintained their hold. From 1825 numerous co-operative societies for mutual trading were organized by Owen's followers, the profits being accumulated to provide funds for starting Owenite communities. Although the communities did not materialize, these short-lived co-operative stores showed that co-operative trading was possible and started the idea of using it as a means of changing the social system. They thus performed an important part in preparing the
ground for the world-wide Consumers' Co-operative Movement which sprang from the Rochdale Pioneers Co-operative Society founded in 1844. These Pioneers were inspired by Owen's teach ing, though their method of organizing production to supply their own needs developed on very different lines from his communities.
After 1834, Owen devoted himself to preaching his educational, moral, rationalist and marriage reform ideas. He formed the Association of All Classes of All Nations, and he was untiring in writing and speaking. His love of children and his great per sonal charm impressed all who came in contact with him up to the end of his life. At the age of 82, he became a spiritualist. He died on a visit to his birthplace, Newtown, on Nov. 17, 1858, his last act, the day before his death, being to draw up a plan for re-organizing the education of the town. He was buried at Newtown, and a memorial tablet was erected on his grave in 1902 by the Co-operative Union.
Robert Owen's four sons all became American citizens. The eldest, ROBERT DALE OWEN (1801-1877), sat in Congress 47), and drafted the bill founding the Smithsonian Institution. In the Indiana House of Representatives, 1836-39 and 1851-52, and Constitutional Convention, 185o, he was instrumental in securing a married woman's property law, a common free school system, and more freedom in divorce. From 1853 to 1858 he was United States ambassador to Naples. He was a strong believer in spiritualism.
Of R. Owen's numerous works in exposition of his system, the most important are the New View of Society; the Report communi cated to the Committee on the Poor Law; The Report to the County of Lanark; the Book of the New Moral World; and Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race. See Life of Robert Owen written by himself (1857), and Threading my Way, Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography, by R. D. 0. (1874). There are also Lives of Owen by A. J. Booth (1869), W. L. Sargant (186o), Lloyd Jones (1889), F. A. Packard (Philadelphia, i866), F. Podmore (1906) and G. D. H. Cole (with bibliography 1925). See also H. Simon, Robert Owen: sein Leben and seine Bedeutung fur die Gegenwart (Jena, 19o5) ; E. Do'leans, Robert Owen (Paris, 19°5) ; G. J. Holyoake, History of Co-operation in England (1906) ; Leonard Woolf, Co-opera tion and the Future of Industry (1919) and the article COMMUNISM.