Robert Pearson Carpenter (18 November 1830 – 14 July 1901) was an English first-class cricketer who played between 1855 and 1876, generally acknowledged to be one of the outstanding batsmen of the 1850s and 1860s.

He played mostly for the Cambridge and Cambridgeshire sides, the North and the United All-England Eleven.

In the early 1860s, Carpenter and his Cambridgeshire contemporary Thomas Hayward were rated the finest batsmen in England.

Richard Daft was among those ranking them as equal first, but George Parr reckoned Carpenter the better of the two.

[2] W. G. Grace said of Carpenter that "he may be safely placed as one of the finest of our great batsmen".