Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury KG was born on April 28, 1801 at 24 Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London. He was styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851 and then Lord Shaftesbury following the death of his father.
Though Ashley was born into wealth, his loveless childhood gave hi an insight into the miserable lives of the children of the Victorian poor. He made it his life's work to improve their lot.
Ashley was elected as the Tory Member of Parliament for Woodstock (a pocket borough controlled by the Duke of Marlborough) at the age of 25 in June 1826. Before he had completed one year in the House of Commons, Ashley had been appointed to three parliamentary committees. He received his fourth such appointment in June 1827, when the 27 year old was appointed to the Select Committee On Pauper Lunatics in the County of Middlesex and on Lunatic Asylum.
Ashley was an evangelical Anglican with a strong conviction of eternity and hope for the Second Coming of Christ. His beliefs underscored the urgency of immediate action and horrified at the treatment of the mentally ill, the young MP seconded a bill to change the law.
Fired by evangelical zeal, Ashley was instrumental in introducing Acts to alleviate the hard lot of factory workers, many of them children, who had been forced to work long hours in severe working conditions since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1833 he championed the Factory Act which limited teenage children to working no more than 12 hours a day and nine years later Ashley succeeded in getting through Parliament the Coal Mines Act, which stopped women and children under the age of 13 from working in coal mines.
It took Ashley fourteen years to achieve his principal objective of the ten-hour work day for adult factory workers before he succeeded in getting passed by Parliament the 1847 Ten Hours Act.
Ashley was an early proponent of the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. In January 1839, he published an article in the Quarterly Review, which provided the first proposal by a major politician to resettle Jews in Palestine. His "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine" was published in the Colonial Times in 1841 (see below).
In 1863 The English clergyman and social reformer Charles Kingsley wrote a children's story, The Water -Babies. The book was intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labor including chimney sweeps. For twelve years after the publication of Water-Babies, Lord Shaftesbury campaigned vigorously for the banning of employing young boys who climbed into and cleaned chimneys. Eventually, the MP persuaded Parliament to pass the Chimney Sweepers Act 1875 which ensured the annual licensing of chimney sweeps and the enforcement of the law by the police.
Due to his constant advocacy for the better treatment of the working classes, Shaftesbury became known as the "Poor Man's Earl."
Shaftesbury was President of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) from 1851 until his death in 1885.
Lord Shaftesbury founded with his money Shaftesbury homes where orphans could be trained to earn a living.
Like many men of God, in his old age Lord Shaftesbury found new moves of God difficult to understand. He concluded, for instance, that the newly formed Salvation Army was a trick of the devil.
Lord Shaftesbury died on October 1, 1885 aged 84 at 12 Clifton Gardens, Folkestone, Kent, England.
Although he was offered a burial at Westminster Abbey, Shaftesbury wished to be buried at the parish church on his estate at Wimborne St Giles, Dorset.
A funeral service for Lord Shaftesbury was held in Westminster Abbey during the early morning of October 8, 1885 and the streets along the route from Grosvenor Square and Westminster Abbey were thronged with factory workers, coal miners and their like who waited for hours to see the Poor Man's Earl's coffin as it passed by.
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| Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, by John Collier (died 1934), |
Though Ashley was born into wealth, his loveless childhood gave hi an insight into the miserable lives of the children of the Victorian poor. He made it his life's work to improve their lot.
Ashley was elected as the Tory Member of Parliament for Woodstock (a pocket borough controlled by the Duke of Marlborough) at the age of 25 in June 1826. Before he had completed one year in the House of Commons, Ashley had been appointed to three parliamentary committees. He received his fourth such appointment in June 1827, when the 27 year old was appointed to the Select Committee On Pauper Lunatics in the County of Middlesex and on Lunatic Asylum.
Ashley was an evangelical Anglican with a strong conviction of eternity and hope for the Second Coming of Christ. His beliefs underscored the urgency of immediate action and horrified at the treatment of the mentally ill, the young MP seconded a bill to change the law.
Fired by evangelical zeal, Ashley was instrumental in introducing Acts to alleviate the hard lot of factory workers, many of them children, who had been forced to work long hours in severe working conditions since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In 1833 he championed the Factory Act which limited teenage children to working no more than 12 hours a day and nine years later Ashley succeeded in getting through Parliament the Coal Mines Act, which stopped women and children under the age of 13 from working in coal mines.
It took Ashley fourteen years to achieve his principal objective of the ten-hour work day for adult factory workers before he succeeded in getting passed by Parliament the 1847 Ten Hours Act.
Ashley was an early proponent of the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. In January 1839, he published an article in the Quarterly Review, which provided the first proposal by a major politician to resettle Jews in Palestine. His "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine" was published in the Colonial Times in 1841 (see below).
In 1863 The English clergyman and social reformer Charles Kingsley wrote a children's story, The Water -Babies. The book was intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labor including chimney sweeps. For twelve years after the publication of Water-Babies, Lord Shaftesbury campaigned vigorously for the banning of employing young boys who climbed into and cleaned chimneys. Eventually, the MP persuaded Parliament to pass the Chimney Sweepers Act 1875 which ensured the annual licensing of chimney sweeps and the enforcement of the law by the police.
Due to his constant advocacy for the better treatment of the working classes, Shaftesbury became known as the "Poor Man's Earl."
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| Lord Shaftesbury by George Frederick Watts. |
Shaftesbury was President of the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) from 1851 until his death in 1885.
Lord Shaftesbury founded with his money Shaftesbury homes where orphans could be trained to earn a living.
Like many men of God, in his old age Lord Shaftesbury found new moves of God difficult to understand. He concluded, for instance, that the newly formed Salvation Army was a trick of the devil.
Lord Shaftesbury died on October 1, 1885 aged 84 at 12 Clifton Gardens, Folkestone, Kent, England.
Although he was offered a burial at Westminster Abbey, Shaftesbury wished to be buried at the parish church on his estate at Wimborne St Giles, Dorset.
A funeral service for Lord Shaftesbury was held in Westminster Abbey during the early morning of October 8, 1885 and the streets along the route from Grosvenor Square and Westminster Abbey were thronged with factory workers, coal miners and their like who waited for hours to see the Poor Man's Earl's coffin as it passed by.
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