Lant Carpenter (September 2, 1780 - April 5/6, 1840) was an English educator and Unitarian minister.

Carpenter was born in Kidderminster, the son of a carpet manufacturer. After some months at a non-conformist academy at Northampton, he tranfered to the University of Glasgow and then joined the ministry. After a short time as assistant master at a Unitarian school near Birmingham, in 1802 he was appointed librarian at the Liverpool Athenaeum .

In 1805 he became pastor of a church in Exeter, moving in 1817 to Bristol. At both Bristol and Exeter he was also engaged in school work, among his Bristol pupils being Harriet and James Martineau. Carpenter did much to broaden the spirit of English Unitarianism. The rite of baptism seemed to him a superstition and he substituted for it a form of infant dedication.

His health, undermined by his constant labours, broke down in 1839 and he was ordered to travel. He was drowned, having been washed overboard from the steamer in which he was traveffing from Livorno to Marseille.