Edmund Roberts Larken (1809–1895) was an English cleric and Christian socialist, a patron of radical causes and author on social matters. Along with other unconventional views, he was noted as possibly the first parish priest of his time to wear a beard.Rosemary Ashton, G. H. Lewes: An unconventional Victorian (2000), pp. 88–9.

Life Larken's father, Edmund Larken (1766–1831), worked for the East India Company. His sister Eliza married William Monson, 6th Baron Monson;Mosley, Charles (ed.) Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, volume 2. Wilmington, Delaware: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. p. 2741 his brother Arthur Staunton Larken (1816–1889), the third son, was known as an officer of arms, becoming Portcullis Pursuivant and then Richmond Herald.

Larken matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford in 1829, graduating B.A. in 1833, and M.A. in 1836.Literary Gazette 4 June 1836; Google Books. He was ordained deacon in 1833, and priest in 1834. At Oxford he considered himself a follower of Richard Whateley.Hill, pp. 149–50; Google Books. He became rector of Burton by Lincoln, remaining there from 1843 to 1895; he was presented to the living by his brother-in-law Lord Monson. In an invasion scare in 1859, a Lincolnshire rifle corps was raised and Larken was chaplain in it.Hill, p. 76; Google Books. An unsuccessful campaign was mounted for him to become Dean of Lincoln in 1860.Hill, p. 260; Google Books.

Interests Larken was interested in the socialist ideas of Charles Fourier, including an account of them with one of his sermons in 1842.Hock Guan Tjoap, George Henry Lewes: a Victorian mind (1977), p. 22; Google Books. He collaborated with John Minter Morgan on schemes for village settlement.Francis Barrymore Smith, Radical Artisan: William James Linton, 1812-97 (1973), p. 94; Google Books. In 1847 he became chairman of a building society, of which George Boole was a director.Hill, p. 130 and note; Google Books. Larken and Boole also worked together in the 1850s on a plan to reduce the impact of prostitution in Lincoln.Hill, p. 138 note 4; Google Books. Other involvements were with the Leeds Redemption Society and a co-operative flour mill.

Larken worked with Matilda Mary Hays and Elizabeth Ann Ashurst on a project to translate George Sand's works into English. It came to an end in 1847 due to lack of support. He joined the Social Reform League in 1850 and the Association for the Repeal of the Taxes on Knowledge in 1851.Edward Royle, Victorian Infidels: the origins of the British secularist movement, 1791-1866 (1974), p. 149 and p. 146; Google Books. He associated with the radicals of his time, and backed The Leader financially. At his house Thomas Archer Hirst encountered George Holyoake.James A. Secord, Victorian Sensation: the extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the natural history of creation (2000), p. 483; Google Books.

Works Sermons on the Commandments (1837) A sermon preached at Horbling, Lincolnshire, in obedience to the Queen's letter in behalf of the distressed manufacturers, on Sunday, July 24, 1842. With an appendix containing a sketch of the industrial system of Fourier (1842) The necessity of toleration to the exercise of private judgment, a sermon (1847) The Miller of Angibault (1847), translated from George Sand, edited by Matilda Hays.Samuel Halkett, John Laing, A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain. Including the Works of Foreigners Written in, or Translated into the English Language vol. 2 (1883, 2006 reprint), cols. 1616–7; Google Books.

Family Larken's eldest son was a medical doctor in the Indian Army, dying at age 26. The third son (born 1844) was Francis Roper,Cuthbert Wilfrid Whitaker, A register of S. Nicholas College, Lancing, from its foundation at Shoreham in August, 1848 to the commencement of the month of November, 1900 (c. 1900), p. 58; archive.org. who was the father of Vice-Admiral Sir Frank Larken and Hubert Larken, the Archdeacon of Lincoln.Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, Armorial Families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour vol. 2 (1905), p. 1134; archive.org. Other children included daughters Annie FrancesPine, L. G. (ed.) Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 17th edition. (London: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1952), p. 1940 and Henrietta.Townend, Peter. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, 18th edition. volume 3. (London: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1965–1972) p. 617

References Francis Hill (1974), Victorian Lincoln; Google Books.

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