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Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1 4RL (tube: Holborn)
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Moncure Daniel Conway (1832 - 1907)

Moncure Daniel Conway was born on March 17, 1832 in Stafford County, Virginia, the son of Walker Peyton and Margarete Daniel Conway.

Walker was a justice in the county court, a trustee of Dickinson College from 1848-1865, and a prominent slave-holder in the county. However, Mrs. Conway's views on slavery differed a great deal from those of her husband's, and young Moncure's first contact with abolitionist views came from his mother.

At the age of 15 Conway was sent north to attend Dickinson College and graduated with the class of 1849. While at Dickinson, he firmly allied himself with the abolitionist cause and turned his energy toward emancipation. Having encountered religious doubts in his young life, Conway became a circuit-riding Methodist minister in 1851. However, he refused to give up his love of art, the theatre, and the works of Emerson, so he left the rigors of Methodism for Unitarianism a year after being ordained.

Conway moved to Boston, spent time among prominent intellectuals of the period, began a life-long friendship with his mentor, Emerson, and graduated from Harvard University in 1854. His first job as a minister in Washington, D.C. was short-lived because his abolitionist views clashed with those of his congregation. He did, however, find considerable favour amongst the members of the Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, Ohio, his next post as minister. In 1858, Conway met and married Ellen Dana, the well-educated daughter of a prominent businessman. Together they would have three children: two sons, Eustace (1859) and Dana (1865), and a daughter, Mildred (1868), who would later marry the accomplished architect Phillip Sawyer.

Unfortunately, the early 1860's would bring hard times for Conway and his growing family. He and Ellen, along with many of their congregation, became increasingly disillusioned with the Unitarian Church and in 1862, they left the church completely. The outbreak of the Civil War caused another painful rift in Conway's life: being Virginians, his two brothers had joined the Confederate army.

Faced with familial and religious alienation, Conway settled temporarily in London in 1863. His advocacy for a peaceful division of the states caused him to lose credibility with fellow abolitionists following an embarrassing encounter between he and James Murray Mason, the Confederate envoy in London. Feeling completely alienated, he sent for his wife and sons, having virtually no ties left to the United States.

However, England afforded Conway the intellectual and spiritual freedom for which he had always yearned. He became increasingly involved in the intellectual, artistic, non-conformist, and free-thinking social circles of London, discovering the South Place Ethical Society, an institution founded on the very ideals of personal spiritual fulfilment that Conway held most dear. In 1866, he was asked to take the position of minister, becoming a scholar of world religions and philosophies. He eventually began to regain some credibility with his fellow abolitionists, and was able to return to the United States in 1884 after the death of his father.

During the next few years, Conway pursued writing, and greatly improved his reputation as a scholar. In 1892, Moncure and Ellen reluctantly returned to London for a short time so he resume his position at the South Place Society.

His wife died in New York on Christmas Day, 1897. After his wife's death, Conway spoke in the United States on topics such as the Spanish-American War, free religion, and voting rights. Again becoming disillusioned with politics in his home country, he left in 1898, this time to France where he devoted much of the rest of his life to the peace movement and writing. Conway's intriguing life ended on November 15, 1907, alone in his Paris apartment.

His long list of published work includes The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870), The Sacred Anthology (1874), Demonology and Devil Lore (1879), Emerson: at Home and Abroad (1882), Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne (1890), The Life of Thomas Paine (1892), and a variety of pamphlets and articles on numerous subjects. His intellectual life had acquainted him with such notables as Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Annie Besant, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Andrew Carnegie, who donated money to Dickinson College to construct a building in honour of Conway.

The above was reproduced from the web-site of Dickinson College, USA. (December 2000)

Note: The building at Dickinson College was taken down in the early 1960s. Conway Hall, London was completed in 1929 and named in his honour. Conway Hall, London is a renowned centre of London's intellectual, political and cultural life. The Conway Hall maintains the South Place Ethical Society's proud tradition of free-thought and rational inquiry.