[1] Fellowship members included the poet Edward Carpenter, animal rights activist Henry Stephens Salt,[2] sexologist Havelock Ellis, feminist Edith Lees (who later married Ellis), novelist Olive Schreiner[3] and future Fabian secretary Edward R. Pease.
[7] Beginning in 1883, Davidson gave several public lectures, and slowly a small group of like-minded individuals began gathering with him for meetings at his home in Chelsea, London.
These meetings were designed to incorporate people who held similar ideals as Davidson, and to form a small society promoting the reorganisation of individual life.
This is as the document appears in its original form, as seen in the Memorials of Thomas Davidson: Vita Nuova Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was a founding member of the Fellowship of the New Life and was at the first meeting in 1883.
He was interested in the main ideas of the Fellowship, including politics, sexual radicalism and the works of Henry Havelock Ellis.
Hunter Watts, Percival Chubb, Frank Podmore, Edward Pease, Hubert Bland, Dr. Burns-Gibson, and Frederick Keddell,[13] and although the society was a branch of the Fellowship of the New Life, Thomas Davidson shared no sympathies with Fabianism.
"[15] The Fabian Society's basis was to promote the transfer of land and capital to the State, equality of citizenship of men and women, and having public authority instead of private for the education and support of children.
The party's constitution, written by Sidney Webb, borrowed heavily from the founding documents of the Fabian Society.
These leaders included India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Obafemi Awolowo, who later became the premier of Nigeria's defunct Western Region, and the founder of Pakistan, Barrister Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore, had a political philosophy strongly influenced by the Fabian Society.
[16] Even in the 21st century, the Fabian Society's influence is felt through Labour Party leaders such as former prime ministers of Great Britain, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.