Henry Edger

Henry Edger (22 January, 1820, Chelwood Gate - April 1888, Paris was an English positivist active in the nineteenth century. He was one of Auguste Comte's ten disciples.

After studying Law in London Edger married Millicent Hobson. Although originally a protestant, he abandonned Christianity in favour of communism. He moved with his family to New York City in 1851. Over the next three years to things caught his interest, Positivism and the Socialist Community of Modern Times an anarchist intentional community based on Long Island, New York State. The two interests were combined when he moved to the community in 1854 for the purposes of spreading positivism. He also started a long series of correspondence with Comte which continued until the latter's death in 1857.^[1]

Although his attempts to spread positivism amongst the inhabitants of Modern Times met with little success, and indeed encountered the hostility of its founder Josiah Warren, it nevertheless provided a base from which Edger could promote Positivism further afield. With his convert, John Metcalf, he provided a range of Positivist reading material available by mail including Modern Times, the Labor question, and the Family which he written himself.^[2]

In 1880 Edger left Modern Times and moved to Paris, where he died in 1888.^[1]

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