The Earl of Shaftesbury

Ashely Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

(A reformer rather than a revivalist)

(1801-1885)

Anthony Ashley Cooper was born in 1801 at 24 Grosvenor Square, London, the eldest child of the Sixth Earl of Shaftesbury. His father was a competent chairman of various House of Lords Committees, but a heartless and negligent landlord in Dorset. He was hard and cold to all his children and the children’s mother was more interested in fashion than her offspring. Ashley’s childhood was not a happy one. He wrote: “I and my sisters — all three of them older than myself— were brought up with great severity, moral and physical, in respect both of mind and body, the opinion of our parents being that, to render a child obedient, it should be in constant fear, of its father and mother.”

He went to a school in Chiswick at aged seven, somewhere he disliked just as much as his home. He wrote, “Nothing could have surpassed it for filth, bullying, neglect, and hard treatment of every sort; nor had it in any respect any one compensating advantage, except perhaps, it may have given me an early horror of oppression and cruelty.”

The one bright area of Ashley’s early life was a strong affection for an old family servant who died just after he went to school. She was an Evangelical who showed him affection and taught him about her faith. On her death she left Ashley her gold watch, which he wore all his life. He would often show it to people and say, “this belonged to the best friend I ever had.”

At twelve, Ashley went to Harrow for three happy years. When there he saw a funeral procession for a pauper, drunken men were carrying the coffin, weaving around so much that the coffin fell to the ground.  This so impacted him that he resolved there and then to in future help the poor. He wrote, “It brought powerfully before me the scorn and neglect manifested towards the poor and helpless. I was deeply affected, but for many years afterwards I acted only on feeling and sentiment. As I advanced in life, all this grew up to a sense of duty, and I was convinced that God had called me to devote whatever advantages He might have bestowed upon me in the cause of the weak, the helpless, both man and beast, and those who had none to help them.” (without his faith, I wonder where his background of harsh treatment, loneliness and lack of parental love, would have taken him?)

After that he went to live for two years during term time in Derbyshire with his cousin and her husband, who was a clergyman. It seems his father sent him there to get him out of the way. Those two years were a complete waste, as he was not expected to study anything. However, he made good friends with a nearby lord of the manor and his young wife. She described Ashley as a magnificently handsome youth, full of fun.

Ashley’s father was then determined to put him in the army, but a friend, Lord Bathurst, persuaded him out of the idea; much to Ashley’s relief. Several peers did what they could to supply the place of a father to him and his brothers. In society the Shaftesburys were much criticised for the way they treated their children. The mother of his good friend George Howard gave him affection and kindness that he missed from his mother.

At eighteen Ashley went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he worked hard and got a 1st class degree in 1822. At the time Oxford was not exactly the centre for Evangelical Christianity, but Asley retained his beliefs, thanks to the old family servant, Maria Milles. He was happy there and made lasting friendships.

He was a very good-looking man, just under six foot tall, slender but strongly built. He had thick curly black hair that contrasted his white skin. He had an aquiline nose, a prominent chin and a full mouth. His light blue eyes were deep-set, under unusually prominent eyelids. The ladies found him very attractive.

It was decided that he would become an MP and while waiting for the next election Ashley went on the Grand Tour of the continent for two years. On his leaving, the celebrated Whig hostess, Lady Holland, said that he was so very handsome and captivating that his absence will be a blessing to young ladies. Evidently the ladies mistook Ashley’s kindness as courtship.

When in Vienna he fell desperately in love with a very beautiful, vivacious girl who was completely unsuitable due to her questionable birth and the fact that she was a Roman Catholic. He decided to marry her, but several people tried to dissuade him, but he finally faced the fact that they were ill matched spiritually. The relationship ended but they remained friends. She later married the great Austrian statesman, Prince Metternich, but sadly died giving birth to his heir.

On his return to England in August 1825, Ashley decided to deepen his Christian knowledge. There is a suspicion that his faith had lessened over the previous few years. Around this time he became friends with the future Foreign Secretary, Granville. Granville said of him, “I have hardly ever known any man with a greater sense of humour or with a greater appreciation of humour in other persons.”

Ashley was very ambitious and as a first step he entered Parliament in 1826 as Tory M P for Woodstock, a constituency in the pocket of his uncle the Duke of Marlborough. In those days the rich and powerful had great influence on the elections in their area. In 1828, when the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister, Ashley was made Commissioner of the India Board of Control. Apart from a few months later on, this was to be the only time Ashley was to serve as a minister. God had other plans.

He then decided on marriage, choosing a girl who came from a very liberal family, with no similarities to his own. The proposed bride’s uncle wrote, “You have now stated the case yourself. £3,000 a year whereof the third comes from a place which he will probably lose very shortly and which you and I both devoutly hope he may. An odious father, and four beggarly brothers. What has poor Min done to deserve to be linked to such a fate, and in a family generally disliked, reputed mad, and of feelings, opinions and connections directly the reverse of all of ours?”

Despite the obvious risk, Ashley married his bride, Lady Emily Cowper in 1830. It says a great deal for Ashley that his wife, who was a woman of singular charm and beauty, adopted all his views of religion, morality and politics, that his married life was as happy as his early home life had been miserable, and that his wife’s family showed their affection for him by allowing him to treat the Cowper house at Panshanger as if it were his own. Nine years later he wrote, “It is a wonderful accomplishment, and a most bountiful answer to one’s prayers, to have obtained a wife, in the highest matters and the smallest details, after my imagination and my heart.”

Factory Children

Ashley’s first job, was to fight for the rights of children who worked in the factories. At the start of the century, children were working in the factories for fourteen hours a day. A Bill was passed in 1802 to limit their hours to twelve a day with no night work, however, there were few inspections so the factory owners ignored the new rules. Reformers tried to get Parliament pass other Bills, but the factory owners had a lot of power. It would go to Committee, where, on one occasion, there were doctors ready to testify that factory life was most wholesome for children! Up until 1831 there were several attempts at improving the children’s conditions, but there was no material change.

In 1835, there were 220,000 workers in cotton mills, 55,000 in woollen and about 16,000 in worsted factories. 12% of cotton workers were children under thirteen, 18% in the woollen factories and 25% in the worsted factories. On top of that there were many more under eighteen. 40% of factory workers were in Lancashire, 20% in the West Riding, 16% in Scotland and 12% in Cheshire.

After an 1831 attempt the reformers found a leader in Parliament, Michael Sadler. He immediately introduced a Ten Hours Bill for all factory workers. The Bill went to Committee which Sadler chaired. He worked tirelessly to get testimonies from the textile industry, which were of extreme value. Many of the witnesses were fired by their employers. The Committee’s report is one of the main sources of information that exists about workers’ conditions at that time.

Witness after witness told their stories of weariness, misery and diseased and twisted limbs. One worsted spinner said that at the age of seven he worked from 5am to 8pm. His brother died at sixteen from spinal problems caused by his work. He himself started to get deformed after six months work. An overseer at a flax spinning mill said he had nine workers who began before they were nine years old, all of whom were deformed. A tailor had three daughters in a mill, the youngest being seven, and in the busy times they had to work from 3am to 10.30pm!

The vividness of the testimonies ensured that Parliament had to do something. Much like the evidence of slavery Wilberforce had submitted to Parliament, some years earlier. Sadler had done a wonderful job, but sadly he died in 1833. The cause had lost a great champion, so the reformers set out to find another. They fixed their gaze on Ashley, who had been an MP for six years, had held office, was a member of the privileged class and had shown in the House that he was compassionate. Ashley accepted their invitation.

In February 1833, Ashley gave notice of renewing Sadler’s Bill. It passed its first reading, but then the factory interests started pushing for it to go to Committee to delay it, even though Sadler’s Committee had done an excellent job. From then on each side pulled and pushed to get the Bill changed. Commissioners were appointed to go around the country, they reported and people with different axes to grind tried to influence the final bill. Ashley lost control, but the Factory Act of 1833 was eventually passed. The day before the Royal Assent had been given to the Act that abolished Slavery in the British Empire.

The Act included all mills and children under nine were forbidden, except in the silk mills. No child under eleven in the first year, under twelve in the second year and under thirteen in the third year; was to be employed for more than 48 hours a week. No child under eighteen was to be employed for more than twelve hours a day or sixty-nine hours a week. Children were to attend school for at least two hours a day. The power in the Act was the appointment of four inspectors with far reaching powers. Ashley’s Bill had been watered down, but the Factory Act was a great improvement.

Ashley decided to give the new Act a chance, but some people were mad that their Ten Hours Bill had been watered down – the main problem being they wanted maximum ten hour days for everyone under twenty-one.

Church Pastoral Aid Society

Every year around 100,000 moved from the country to the industrial cities. This growth of the cities meant that the Church of England vicars could not cope with the number of people. Non-Conformists took up some of the spare work, but there were still thousands of parishioners in the poorest areas were almost ignored. So, in February 1836 Ashley met with sixty men and formed the Church Pastoral Aid Society, “for increasing the number of working clergymen in the Church of England and encouraging the appointment of pious and discreet laymen as helpers to the clergy in duties not ministerial.” Ashley was Chairman.

The new Society was immediately attacked by almost every bishop because they had not been consulted. Ashley spent hours writing letters, trying to get the bishops onside, but with little success. However, after the initial problems, things went from strength to strength. His aim was to get a well-paid pastor for every 3,000 people, to do his work without interference from the State. Ashley’s speeches at the Society were widely reported. At the fifteenth annual meeting he reported, “We can quote very great and unmerited success.”

Jewish Homeland

At this time Ashley’s personal religion went deeper, with a strong sense of the presence of God, even when suffering from depression which happened from time to time. He read some books on the Second coming of Christ and was excited at the idea. He also began to study prophecy. The motive for all he did was unchanged, the love of Christ and Christ’s love of man. The study of prophecy led him to believe that the Jews would return to the Holy Land. He advocated a Jewish homeland in Palestine, under Turkish rule but British protection. Palmerton was politically ready to forward his scheme. The first thing to do was to appoint a Bishop for the area, which was done, but although in existence for fifty years, nothing much was achieved. However, Ashley had a vision that inspired the first steps to return the Jews to Palestine.

Burdened by all the work he was doing he wrote, “My hands are too full, Jews, Chimney Sweeps (see later), Factory Children, Church Extension etc, etc. I shall succeed I fear, partially in all and completely in none. Yet we must persevere; there is hope.”

Factory Act Amendment

There were a few attempts to try to change the Factory Act, but they failed. In 1840 Ashley realised that Parliament was not in a place to do anything more for the moment, so he obtained an appointment to a Select Committee to enquire into the working of the 1833 Factory Act. Also, and more importantly, he managed to get a Royal Commission set up to inquire into the condition of children in the mines and other industries that the Factory Act did not cover. In his speech, which resulted in the setting up of the Commission, Ashley described the children in the pin-making trade. Parents would borrow money and then pay it off by having their children (as young as five), working from 6am to 8pm. When they reached fifteen, they were of no use for any work and they ended up in, ‘plunder, prostitution or pauperism.’

After the Committee reported, Ashley persuaded the Government to introduce two bills, one to amend the Act and the other to include the silk and lace industries. The first passed its second reading, but then the Government fell and a new one came to power led by Peel.

Ashley was now forty and had a position of regard in Parliament and favour with the public. He had little money, a growing family and a bad relationship with his father. Although thoroughly engaged in trying to get better conditions of work for his fellowmen, he also wanted a position in this new government to further his political career. However, conditions existed that made Peel oppose a new Factory Act, so Ashley was determined to refuse any offer of a government position. However, the position he was offered was a lowly one in the Royal Household. It was clear to Ashley that Peel only wanted to benefit from his name. The reason why Peel did this was that he did not like Ashley’s evangelical stance, nor did he want to change the Factory Act, he was more interested in successful factories than social reform. 

The state of his Factory Act led him to write, “this Government is ten times more hostile to my views than the last one and they carry it out in a manner far more severe and embarrassing.”

Government at this time was never keen to make changes, but they were receptive to Commissions being set up to look into problems. Ashley used this receptiveness to start investigations which he hoped would find out things that would stir the public conscience, and if that happened the Government was normally forced to act. This was the case with the Commission that looked into the conditions in the mines.

The Commission was set up in 1840 and two years later it reported its findings. A novelty was the pictures of the conditions that were included. It was thought that these illustrations would have more of an impact on the Members of Parliament than just words. The Commission’s report took England by storm.

The employment in the mines of children aged seven was common, and sometimes the children were six or even five years old. The youngest were employed to activate the ventilation in the mines. They sat in a small hole for twelve hours or more, pulling on a string. All this time they were all alone in the dark! They were also used to push the small trolleys filled with coal along the tracks and pump out water from the bottom of the pit. When pumping water they would stand, ankle-deep in the water for twelve hours. In some mines they also ran the engines that took the men in cages to the surface and down again. The children only cost the mine owners twenty percent of what they paid an adult. 

The public were appalled by the reports of injuries suffered by these children. Accidents were common and doctors and coroners hushed things up to please the powerful mine owners. Sometimes the children worked for sixteen hours or even thirty-six if they were required to do a double shift.

There was no religion or education for these children. The neglect and ignorance in which they grew up made a deep impression on the ruling class. Something else that stirred them was the fact that women as well as children were employed in the mines. The picture of men and women working together in degrading conditions, outraged their sense of decency.

Such was the indignation in the country that Ashley was able to act immediately. He introduced a Bill to exclude from the pits, all women and girls and any boys under thirteen. It also banned anyone under twenty-one from being an engine man. His two hour speech impacted many, bringing some to tears. The most striking plaudit came from Cobden, an old enemy. He said, “You know how opposed I have been to your views, but I do not think I have ever been put into such a frame of mind, in the whole course of my life, as I have been by your speech.” The Bill passed its first and second reading without a single challenge. 

However, after the universal emotional reaction died down, some opposition arose. After a change, stipulating that children of ten could work in the mines and those under thirteen could only work every other day, the Bill passed to the House of Lords. Unfortunately, there the large pit owners were very powerful and were more interested in profit than humanity. It seemed that Ashley had no friends in the Lords – they were largely opposed to the Bill. However, they did not dare throw it out, so they amended it. They threw out the alternate days working of boys under thirteen; they moved the age for operating the cages from twenty-one to fifteen; women and girls were banned and the inspectors were limited to checking on the state of the people, not the state of the mines. The banning of women caused a lot of hardship as many mines were in remote areas where there was no alternative employment. Some dressed as men to get work. The change with respect to the inspectors was altered eight years later when some doctors reported on the number of accidents that happened in the mines. Two thousand people died in the mines each year, let alone those injured.

This was the time of Chartism, where the working class tried to get political reform. In this environment Asheley went on a tour of the manufacturing districts where he visited, “cellars, garrets, gin palaces, beer houses, brothels, gaming houses, and every resort of vice and violence.” He commented, “Over a large surface of the industrial community, man has been regarded as an animal, and that an animal of not the highest order; his loftiest faculties, when not prostrate, are perverted, and his lowest exclusively devoted to the manufacture of wealth.” 

Ashley’s relationship with his parents had never been cordial, but in December 1839 he made up their differences and he went home for the first time in ten years. However, in 1843 there was a cloud forming that would put another wedge between father and son. There were a lot of murmurings in the country of the conditions for employees on estates and farms, particularly in Dorsetshire, where Ashley’s father’s estate was. Politicians and others were accusing Ashley of being a hypocrite as he was very ready to speak out and fight for the workers in the mills and mines, but not for the poor farmworker on his father’s estate. 

Ashley tried to steer a middle course in a speech he made, but he upset his father and did not satisfy his detractors. As a result, he never spent another Christmas with his father, and his reticence to speak out forcefully in support of the agricultural workers weakened his reputation and to an extent, his influence – for a while at least. 

Despite some successes, Ashley was terribly frustrated with the opposition he regularly came up against. He wrote, “the dangerous classes in England are not the people! The dangerous classes are the lazy ecclesiastics, of whom there are thousands, and the rich who do no good with their money.” His self-control in public was well known, but it all came out in his journal when he got home. Towards the end of his life Ashley tore out a few pages, but the rest was published soon after his death. There was some criticism that it was published while people mentioned were still alive.

In March 1844 Ashley put an amendment to the Government’s new Factory Bill that would in effect bring about the ten-hour working day that he had been fighting for so long. Prime minister Peel and his Home Secretary tried to persuade Ashley to withdraw his amendment as they were very opposed to it. One of the main arguments against a ten-hour working day was that everyone would get a pay reduction, while those supporting the idea were more concerned with the health of the workers. The amendment was passed, but Peel was not going to give up – he announced that he was withdrawing the Bill and would introduce another that would keep the twelve-hour day.

A month later they were debating the new Bill and once again Ashley introduced a motion to bring in the ten-hour day. Peel went all out to defeat the motion and succeeded by a large majority. The Act when passed, disappointed those wanting a ten-hour day, but it did provide for the safeguarding of machinery and the work of inspectors was made more effective. Also, children’s hours were reduced to six and a half hours per day. 

At this time Peel was prepared to offer Ashley a position in the Government as Secretary of State for Ireland; a much better position than his previous offer of a place at Court. He was sounded out twice, but Ashley would not take any position until the ten-hour day was law.

Ashley was in constant trouble over money. He lived on a very insubstantial allowance that had to support a large household as he had nine children. The only way he could survive was by borrowing. Ashley could not afford a secretary, which meant that he had to do everything himself and there was scarcely a busier man in the Houses of Parliament.

1845 was a difficult year for Ashley. He was continually pressed on his position regarding the plight of the agricultural workers. However, he did have success in pushing through an Act to help the children in the Calico Printing Industry. He had to compromise a bit, but the passing of the Act was a success for him.

Ashley decided not to push his Ten Hours Bill forward that year. That meant, however, that he had to do a tour of his supporters in the north to reassure them. 

Many years earlier the Corn Laws had been passed in order to protect farmers from foreign grain trade, to keep grain prices high. However, in 1845 there was a potato blight in Kent and two months later it was rapidly spreading across Ireland. Had the Englis crop been a good one, then a disaster could have been diverted, but the country had had a month of persistent rain which resulted in a disastrous harvest. Something had to be done about the Corn Laws to reduce prices. Prime Minister Peel favoured the immediate, rather than gradual repeal of the Corn Laws.

Ashley gave his views on the situation and got attacked by both sides, the Protectionists, who took his speech as meaning he was for the abolition, and the Free Traders, who thought he wanted a long timescale and modifications to what they wanted. He wrote that he had no Party as the Whigs thought he leaned significantly towards the Conservatives and the Conservatives thought he had injured them. He believed that all classes were against him and that his usefulness was over.

Ashley realised Peel was going for abolition and as he had been elected by a Protectionist constituency, he resigned on the 31st January 1846. Two days before resigning he once again introduced a Ten Hours Bill. It was discussed in his absence and failed by ten votes – again it was Peel’s influence that brought it down.

While he was away, the Government was defeated over an Irish Bill and Peel resigned. John Russell became Prime Minister. Ashley was invited to stand for Oxford or Bath at the next election – he chose Bath. He was very interested in the appointment of Bishops and he had meetings with the new Prime Minister to try to influence him.

With the change of Government, Ashley was keen to introduce the Ten Days Bill, but friends suggested he wait until the next election when he would be in Parliament again. He strongly disagreed and his ally, John Fielden introduced the Bill in Parliament on January 26th, 1847. The only real question was whether they would have to compromise with an Eleven Hour Bill, but Peel’s colleagues abstained from voting, so it passed and became law. It was disappointing for Ashley, that after so much work he was not there to see it through, but the important thing was that it finally became law. Eleven years later two of the men who most vigorously opposed the Bill, acknowledged that their fears had been wrong.

The Ten Hours Act came into effect in May 1848 and almost immediately the mill owners found a loophole that enabled them to get around the ten-hour rule. Ashley bemoaned that after seventeen years the work had to start all over again. He was very tired and very busy with his new interest, Ragged Schools. Even though it could be measured only in months, his time away from the mills meant he had lost touch with how the men felt.

Clearly, the intention of Parliament was for the ten hours to be honoured so a new motion to correct the technical problem was fought out. Ashley once again was asked by the northern mill workers to lead the motion in Parliament. During the toing and froing a compromise of ten and a half hours was brought up and to the horror of the workers, Ashley supported it. The workers thought that Ashley would satisfy their demands, but he felt that he would make decisions for what he thought was their own good. He thought that the mood of Parliament had changed and that the ten hours would not have passed. The result was that Ashley was reviled as a traitor by those in the north. Eventually, their antagonism would mellow considerably. It was not until 1874 that the factory workers would get their ten-hour day.

Later, other trades were brought under the Factory Act. Ashley took a large part in this as he had set up a Commission in 1861, looking into conditions of employment for children and young people in trades not under the law. Many were in conditions worse than the mills. He also achieved a Factory Act for India.

The laws that Ashley put directly or indirectly on the Statute Book touched some but not all of the problems presented by the new industrial system. He might have achieved more but he did more than any single man, or any single Government in English history, to check the raw power of the new industrial system. 

In 1847 Parliament was dissolved and Ashley was restored to the Commons in the election. One of his two opponents in the election spent a fortune to win, whereas Ashley did not spend a penny in promotion. He squeezed in by 50 votes.

The Ragged Schools

Although the odd person had taught some poor for free, a man called John Pounds was the inspiration for this movement. He was a crippled shoemaker in Portsmouth, who died in 1839. 

The first recognised Ragged School was in Field Lane, Clerkenwell, London in November 1841. This school advertised for teachers in The Times and it was read by Ashley. He had been wondering for a while how to reach the wretched children in the slums and this seemed to be an answer. The Ragged Schools became a particular passion of his and of all his interests, probably the closest to his heart. A Ragged School Union was formed in 1844, with Ashley as Chairman. giving thousands of poor children from the slums the chance of a basic education including, most importantly, Biblical teaching. By this time there were about twenty free schools for the poor. 

In 1849 Ashley told the Commons that there were 82 Ragged Schools and 8,000 pupils. In 1867 there were 26,000 pupils in London. Many of them spent the night in some rough place on the streets.

Several other movements came out of his involvement with the Ragged Schools, because he had such a deep concern for the multitude of desperate children in London. Among these were emigrating, housing, training etc.

With others, Shaftesbury founded in 1843 the National Refuges for Homeless and Destitute Children - well known today as the Shaftesbury Homes, where thousands of destitute boys and girls were housed and trained for work at home or overseas. He continued to work tirelessly for ways to house these poor young people, including extending the scope of Reformatory Schools. He was keen on emigrating young people to where they could start new lives. 

His retirement from Parliament in 1846 altered his whole life profoundly, it marked a turning point in his career. In his few months in retirement from Parliament, Ashley went systematically over the slums of London with the sanitary reformer, Dr Southwood Smith. He wrote, “The foul and dismal passages are thronged with children of both sexes and of every age from three to thirteen. Though wan and haggard, they are singularly vivacious, and engaged in every sort of occupation but that which would be beneficial to themselves and creditable to the neighbourhood.” The horrors and misery he saw weighed him down and from then on his mind was far more focused on being a philanthropist than a politician. 

Although he loved spending time interacting with these street ruffians, spending so much time in poverty ridden places increased Ashley’s moroseness. His journal contained a record of the moods, fears, hopes, disappointments, self-questionings and spiritual anxieties that created the turmoil that was beneath the outward peace of his religious faith. He would constantly analyse himself, disparaging, challenging and judging. For someone inclined to morbid brooding there needed to be a balance of joy in order to cope. The more he got involved with the miseries of the nation, the less interested he became in enjoyment of any kind. In earlier years he enjoyed travel, reading and other things away from politics, but as time went by he was aware of the gloom that was enveloping him and his time doing restful activities ceased.

1848 was the year of revolutions around Europe and many feared trouble in England. However, Ashley and others felt that this was avoided because of the previous ten years of work in the slums by missionaries and clergy. The French Premier said that, “The religion alone in your country has saved you from revolution.”

Queen Victoria recognised Ashley’s part in this and invited him to come and discuss it with her and Prince Albert. Next morning Prince Albert took him for a long walk, during which he asked what he could do to help. Ashley had set up the Labourer’s Friend Society four years earlier and suggested that the Prince give a speech at the Annual meeting after visiting some of the nearby slums. The Prince loved the idea, but the Prime Minister vetoed it, fearing trouble. Ashley persuaded the Prince to go his own way and the Prime Minister gave way. Ashley took him from house to house in the slums next to the Exeter Hall and he was welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm and respect. He then made a fine speech in the Exeter Hall, calling on the rich to help with the housing of the poor. The news of parts of the speech and the visit to the slums spread far and wide. The poor realised that the Queen and Prince cared for them. This was an important change.

Child Emigration

Ashley was conscious that the future of these slum children was not good, even with a basic education, so he made a speech in Parliament, asking the Government to pay for 1-2,000 of the children every year to emigrate to the Colonies. To his surprise the Government paid for the first group to go and Ashley went down to the ship to address them before they embarked. He told them, among other things, to always remember to pray. Glowing reports were sent to him of the success of this project.

Shortly afterwards, he wondered if this scheme could work for adults. A City Missionary organised a meeting of four hundred criminals which Ashley addressed. They all wanted to emigrate, believing it would give them a new start with no questions asked. He promised to help and with the help of a banker three hundred either emigrated or found jobs at home.

1849 was a tragic year for Ashley. His heir, Anthony, was a great disappointment to him, but his second son, Francis, was the apple of his eye. He was very intelligent, charming and a strong Christian. Sadly, while at Harrow he got pleurisy and his parents rushed to the school. Spending much time at his bedside, Francis tragically died after twelve days. To add to their troubles their third son, Cecil, who had mental problems, started to have epileptic fits. 

Ashley was an unhappy man. He wrote in 1853, “Philanthropy, combined with a peerage, reduces a man to the lowest point.” He recognised the dangers of his lifestyle, writing in 1855 on the sufferings of the poor, “These things morbidly affect me. They are ever in my mind, and during the inclement season, destroy all my comfort, and abate the enjoyment of what, by God’s mercy, I possess.”  

Over time Ashley took on more and more tasks and went on more and more Committees which required a great deal of letter writing. He wrote, “Sit down and weep over the sad, wearisome, useless expenditure of time and strength on the letters I must read, and 

the letters I must write. No one would believe (I can hardly believe it myself) the amount of everything that is precious that is wasted in this way…I am worn out by this dull, monotonous, fruitless occupation.”

Public Health

Next, Ashley turned his attention to Public Health. An inquiry was conducted and in 1844 Edwin Chadwick drafted one of the most powerful documents ever issued from a government department, describing the slums, the overcrowding, the neglect of arrangements for water or drains, the revolting conditions of burial, that were giving the English towns a terrible character for degradation and disease. Fifty large towns were investigated and they found forty-two had bad drainage and thirty-one bad water supply. This is not surprising as there was no Government authority in charge of these areas. 

A Bill was introduced and like all attempts at reform, it had many people objecting to it. Two Commissioners were appointed under the Health of Towns Act – Chadwick and Ashley. Ashley wrote in September 1848, “It will involve trouble, anxiety, reproach, abuse, unpopularity. I shall become a target for private assault and the public press; but how could I refuse?” He was chosen because he was known to be willing to get his hands dirty and the he was incorruptible. Unfortunately, Ashley was the wrong man for a job which required him to adapt to others – co-operating with Trade Unions and Town Councils was not one of his giftings, he was more of a leader. Also, he had little tact. Chadwick was also a difficult character, so the future did not look good. 

The Board lasted six years, but did not achieve what was hoped for, probably because the problems were so vast and it was much disliked because it had so much power. One success was during the two cholera outbreaks that occurred during its lifetime. 58,000 people died, but one person estimated that had the Board not taken action then the number of deaths would have followed examples in Europe and been around 600,000.

There was one other success. In February 1855, a doctor who dealt with cholera in the West Indies, came to discuss the subject with Shaftesbury. During the conversation he had the idea of sending out a powerful Sanitary Commission to the Crimea where soldiers were being struck down all the time with Cholera. He immediately put his idea before Ministers, including a suggestion for a National Day of Humiliation. Both ideas were taken up and three Commissioners were appointed immediately and within three days they were on the high seas with instructions from Shaftesbury and a team of medical staff. Florence Nightingale, who was already in the Crimea, said that this Commission saved the British Army.

Shaftesbury continued his interest in Housing long after the Board of Health ended, and gave a lot of help to housing associations.

In May 1854, Lord Aberdeen (a strong Christian), who was Prime Minister, offered Shaftesbury the Order of the Garter, but he refused it. This is the greatest honour the Government could have offered him, but he refused – possibly because of the high fee that went with it, which he could not afford. And then in February 1855, the new Prime Minister, Palmerston (his father-in-law), urged Shaftesbury to take the Cabinet post of the Duchy of Lancaster. His wife encouraged him to take it and his mother-in-law warned him that this would probably be the last offer he would get if he turned down this third offer. Shaftesbury felt that God wanted him with the poor rather than in Parliament. He urged Palmerston to try to find someone else, but not hearing anything he put on his Court dress and was in prayer while waiting for the carriage to take him to the Palace. However, a letter arrived from Palmerston saying he had found a replacement. 

He had a close relationship with Palmerston, despite him being an atheist. He refused other offers, even to be Home Secretary in 1866. When he was Home Secretary, Palmerston saw through the House, Shaftesbury’s Bill to set up Reformatories for young offenders which stopped them going to prison. In 1862 he persuaded the Earl to accept the Garter and paid the fees for him. When particularly worried about finances, Palmerston set up Shaftesbury’s fourth son, Lionel in business and made his third son, Evelyn, his Private Secretary, when he came down from Trinity, Cambridge. 

Appointing Bishops

Palmerston did not know anything about Godly matters, so he asked Shaftesbury to advise in such matters. Shaftesbury had to take into account Palmerston’s principles, so the men he recommended were not necessarily ones he himself would have appointed. Palmerston appointed five archbishops and twenty bishops. Appointments were not given as a bribe or because of family connections and Evangelicals for once had representation. Shaftesbury’s Bishops were men of God who worked hard for the people.

Shaftesbury’s third son, the gentle, epileptic Maurice, died in 1855 aged twenty. Mary, his second daughter died of tuberculosis in 1861. His heir, Anthony became an MP but continued to disappoint.

On inheriting his estate and title, the Earl of Shaftesbury, in 1851 he went around inspecting the buildings on it and was horrified at the conditions he found. He realised that the criticisms laid against his father were justified, but he had inherited a load of debt and had no money to improve the houses. He wrote, “Surely I am the most perplexed of men. I have passed my life in rating others for allowing rotten houses and immoral, unhealthy dwellings; and now I come into an estate rife with abominations! Why, there are things here to make one’s flesh creep; and I have not a farthing to set them right.” 

He did what he could. He put an end to the truck (barter) system, even though several of his tenants as a result. He made plans for improving the cottages and the estate. He built schools in three of his most neglected villages. He started cricket clubs and evening classes. He was so short of money that he left home six months after his father’s death because he could not afford to live there. He loved his heritage, but knew he had to take a very sad step  - to sell the family pictures. He raised the wages of his workers and embarked on a large draining scheme. Shaftesbury left all the detail to his agent and did not take nearly enough interest in the detail of running his estate. The result was that his agent took advantage, which resulted in his losing about £50,000 and five years of lawsuits. He spent money on the main house, which was partly falling down and slowly got the estate in good order. If it was not for a few rich friends who lent him money interest free, he would have been in a lot of trouble. His many acts of kindness to his tenants meant that they adored him.

There was an amusing statement in a religious newspaper in 1853. “And who is this Earl of Shaftesbury? Some unknown lordling…It is a pity he does not look at home. Where was he when Lord Ashley was so nobly fighting for the Factory Bill and pleading for the English slave? We never even heard the word Lord Shaftesbury then.”

Repeal of the Act banning religious gatherings outside a C of E building

In 1855 Shaftesbury successfully repealed an Act that, since the seventeenth century, had banned religious gatherings outside a Church of England building. It was seldom enforced, but he heard of a meeting of miners that had been stopped and he knew that the London City Meetings were technically illegal. He had great opposition from High Church peers and clergy. This success of Shaftesbury’s had unintended consequences. The biggest revival the United Kingdom has known began in 1858 and by 1860 it had reached London. The repeal of the Act allowed Shaftesbury and his friends to hire seven theatres every Sunday evening across London for services for the poor. Over the next few years others hired halls all over London to have services and hundreds of thousands of poor Londoners heard the Gospel powerfully preached. None of this would have happened had Shaftesbury not changed the law.

Agricultural Labourers

In 1865 Shaftesbury turned his attention to gang labour on the farms. These gangs were about 40 strong and made up mostly of children. They would go from farm to farm doing a particular job for a day or two. He suggested that they be investigated by the Commission that was looking into child labour. The Commission reported two years later. It was shown that the infant death rate in some areas of the country was nearly as bad as Manchester.

After some problems, the Government brought out a Bill making it illegal to employ any child under eight, or any woman or child where men were employed. Gang masters had to be licensed.

Children trained for the Sea and other employment

1866 was the year of yet another Shaftesbury scheme. On a cold night he went to the Boys Refuge in Great Queen Street, an offshoot of the Ragged Schools. One hundred and fifty urchins had arrived because of the promise of a meal. He watched them as they devoured plates of roast beef and plum pudding and then they gathered in another room where he asked them questions. He wanted to know if these ragged, smelly boys wanted to get out of their way of life into trade or the merchant navy. They nearly all said they would.

Shaftesbury was frustrated that despite many years of Ragged Schools and emigration scheme there were still so many destitute children. However, he had a plan to help resolve this. On hearing that these boys wanted to change, he approached the Navy, asking them to provide ships that could be turned into schools to train these boys as seamen. He trusted that they would behave and succeed and they did. The first ship was inaugurated at the end of the year. These boys would be given a good Christian education and would go in their ships all around the world, showing people that the British Navy was not full of drunken sailors etc. So instead of foreigners employed in the merchant ships, they employed these ragged boys. This work led to other schemes, such as Barnardo’s orphanages, who came to London a few years later.

Lunatic Asylums

A great evil from the eighteenth century were the Lunatic Asylums. Nobody was ready to try to reform them. Those who managed the asylums were not keen on admitting there was a problem and the elites were slow to act because publicity may have brought family skeletons out of the closet. Then there was the problem of giving credence to someone who was in an asylum because of a mental disorder and there was a long-held prejudice against lunatics as many were thought to be possessed by demons. 

Ashley took up an interest in this subject around 1828. By 1844 he had been chairman of the Metropolitan Commissioners for sixteen years. In July of that year he brought the Commissioner’s report on the appalling condition of homes for lunatics outside of London. Ashley gave a long speech on behalf of these poor people. Richard Shiel, an Irish Member, said of Ashley during the debate, “… namely that this conduct is worthy of the highest praise for the motive by which he is actuated and for the sentiments by which he is inspired. …It may be truly stated that he has added nobility to the name of Ashley and that he has made Humanity one of ‘Shaftesbury’s Characteristics.’ (his book)” Ashley was overwhelmed by the cheering from all sides.

In 1846 he introduced and passed into law a Bill for the regulation of the care and treatment of lunatics, that became known as Shaftesbury’s Act on which all future legislation was based. Shaftesbury also got a supplemental Act passed that made counties and boroughs erect buildings if there were too many patients. In 1851 Shaftesbury wrote, “It has effected, I know, prodigious relief, has forced the construction of many public asylums, and greatly multiplied inspection and care. Much, alas! remains to be done, and much will remain; and that much will, in the estimation of the public, who know little and inquire less, overwhelm the good, the mighty good that has been the fruit.”

Shaftesbury worked on behalf of the insane for over fifty years. The first twenty he visited the asylums regularly, and after that only on special occasions. He left the day to day problems with the paid Commissioners. In 1877 he gave evidence to a Committee. He told them that the public was always believing that people were being wrongly incarcerated, but he knew that over eighteen years, 185,000 certificates had been signed by doctors, but only six had been wrongly incarcerated. Licensed asylums had improved dramatically over that period. An area he advised changed was in the power of the Commissioners as they were finding it hard to prosecute asylum owners who had done wrong. 

There was a need for a new Bill to make some improvement to the Act, but each year there was no time to fit it in. In 1885 the Government finally came up with a new Act which Shaftesbury mostly agreed with, but he was livid about the law requiring a Magistrate to sign off on a detention. He believed it would delay putting the patient into the asylum where they could get help. He was upset that his fifty-six years of experience was being ignored, so he resigned as a Commissioner. Time would show that his fears were groundless. Shortly after this the Government fell, the Bill disappeared (a version was eventually passed in 1890) and as his resignation had not been accepted, Shaftesbury remained a Commissioner in Lunacy. One of the last entries in his journal was, “Overwhelmed by anxiety and labour, on the matter of this Lunacy business, which, coming on me in midst of this horrible depression, was almost too much for me. Got through it at last, by God’s mercy and goodness”

By 1872 Shaftesbury had been married to his beloved Minny for forty-two years. His wife had been caring for their dear daughter, Conty in Mentone, France as she had tuberculosis. On returning to London the doctor said Conty needed to go to Malvern if she was to have any hope of living. Minny tirelessly looked after her and fell dangerously ill with asthma as a result. In October she died, aged sixty-one. Shaftesbury was heartbroken and his black hair turned grey. The Queen sent a letter of condolence in her own hand. She was fond of Minny. Constance was still very ill and had to return to Mentone, but she died in December. The nurse looking after her had seen many Christians die, but she had “never seen anything approaching to this. I can only call it angelic.” Shaftesbury wrote, “she taught me more in one half hour than I had imparted to her in her whole life.” He turned his grief into deeper sympathy for all who were suffering.

The Climbing Boys

In 1873 Lord Shaftesbury drew attention in the House of Lords to an inquest on a climbing boy, aged seven and a half years, who had been suffocated in a flue. In 1840 there was an Act that forbade children going up chimneys, but twenty years later using boys this way was increasing. Some of the boys died of suffocation, others of cancer related to their occupation. If one asks why this practice continued, it is probably to do with an Englishman not liking to be told what to do regarding his home – his castle. The Lords had more chimneys than most and protected what they called ‘’rights of privacy.’ Housewives were also against change, not wanting soot spread all over the room if another method was used to clean the chimney.

It was against these deep-rooted prejudices that Shaftesbury fought his long series of battles for the chimney-sweep children. He began in 1840 when he gave his support to a new Bill that prohibited the climbing of chimneys by any person under twenty-one years of age, and the apprenticeship to a sweep of any boy under sixteen. Fines were imposed for breaking the law. This Bill was passed with little change. Broadly speaking, the law was disregarded in manufacturing districts, where child life was of little account, and in country districts, where the owners of big houses, many of them magistrates, demanded child sweeps for their chimneys. In London however, the practice died out, mainly due to public opinion. Sweeps got around the law by employing boys but not apprenticing them.

The situation changed when the public were shocked by the death of a seven-year-old in 1847. The sweep got ten years transportation. Added to this were numerous accounts from the country of children being killed, tortured, bought and sold. This led to the formation of the ‘Climbing Boys Society’ of which Shaftesbury was the Chairman. The Society collected data and prosecuted when possible. One child was sold five times, another died when he went up a chimney with a smouldering fire below and another died in his tenth chimney that day.

However, there was still no appetite for reform. A Bill Shaftesbury originated in 1851, died in the Commons. Two years later Shaftesbury presented the same Bill, but this time it stuck in the Lords. It was put into Committee of which Shaftesbury was a member together with his leading opponent, Lord Beaumont. There were thirteen witnesses who overwhelmingly supported the Bill and they proved that changing the shapes of the chimneys, which was one of the main reasons for opposing the Bill, was quite inexpensive. A master sweeper gave evidence that the worst of all chimneys were those of Lord Beaumont and that those of another Committee member were almost as bad. Shaftesbury made a mistake here as the Committee did not mind speaking in the abstract, but not when it was personal. They rejected the Bill.

The following year the Lords allowed Shaftesbury’s Bill to pass, probably out of embarrassment for their refusing it the year before. However, the Commons threw it out on a technicality and then there was the Crimean War. Shaftesbury took it up again in 1861 in the scope of the Children’s Employment Commission. This time there were sixty-three witnesses who described the same horrors, the same dangers, the same excuses and the same opposition.

With this report and a change of political atmosphere the Bill passed through the Lords and Commons easily in 1864, but they might have saved their effort as the Act was a failure. There was no provision for enforcement of the Act and Magistrates tended to ignore it or give minute fines. It is surprising that Shaftesbury did not recognise this critical flaw. 

Shaftsbury was able to present a new Bill in 1875 after two more deaths of young boys sickened the public. With the help of the Times, he stirred Parliament to pass the Bill which included a clause that put in the hands of the police the enforcement of the Act. 

Lord’s Day Observance Society

Shaftesbury was one of the leading Evangelicals of his day. He was always on the lookout to stop anyone who was against the Christian way of life. He stopped people trying to open the Crystal Palace and the British Museum on a Sunday and pressured the Prime Minister to reverse his permission to approve bands playing in the Parks on Sundays. He was Chairman of the Lord’s Day Observance Society and the Working Men’s Lord’s Day Observance Society, so he worked hard to keep Sunday as a day of rest. 

Education Act

With regard to education Shaftesbury was usually on the wrong side of the argument. Whenever there were talks about creating national schools he was against the idea as he worried that there would be no religious education included, even though the Bill stated that in every school there would be a time set apart for religious education. He thought that the rate-payers would get rid of it at the earliest opportunity. The non-conformists were against the idea for the same reason. He did not actually oppose the Education Act of 1870, but he did not like it. He preferred the Ragged Schools all his life, where he was sure they would get a good religious education. When the Bill was passed, he said, “It was inevitable, but you will date from it the greatest moral change that England has ever known.” He saw that the Education Act would lead to the secularisation of England. He was right.

Moody and Sankey

In 1875 Moody and Sankey came to London on their wonderful ministry tour of Scotland and England. Shaftesbury went to hear them and was most impressed and happy that they preached Christ crucified. He said that Sankey’s songs, “to the innermost soul and seemed to empty it of everything.” He recognised that Moody, despite his colloquialisms, had the wonderful power to get to the hearts of the people. He put his prestige and experience behind the mission. He encouraged Moody to speak in the East End and to the upper classes in the West-end. His meetings in both places were packed.

People drew on Shaftesbury’s time every day. Despite being over seventy, he was working like never before. He spent a lot of time in Parliament and his correspondence was vast. (I wonder what he would have achieved had he had the use of a computer.) Even returning home at night he would often find poor people waiting there to speak to him. A friend urged him to not entertain such people late at night, but he replied, “But if I so acted, I should by neglect injure the poor who have no helper.”

Faith and legacy

Everything Shaftesbury did in his life was the result of his faith. Those biblical principles that he learned from the family retainer so long ago, were the foundation for everything he did. He believed in the literal truth and the literal application of every word of the Bible.  He believed that the second coming of Christ was imminent, and his envelopes were stamped with an inscription in Greek, “So come, Lord Jesus.” 

Shaftesbury gave the first part of the day to God in prayer and reading the Word. He liked to walk in the grounds of St Giles in the morning and the household and family gathered for prayer. He enjoyed the repartee with guests around the dinner table. One guest described him on one such occasion as, “fascinating, light-hearted and humorous to excess.

The desire to serve his Master drove him on into old age. He once said, “If I followed my own inclination I would sit in my armchair and take it easy for the rest of my life. But I dare not do it. I must work as long as life lasts.”

For his eightieth birthday the Lord Mayor offered the Guildhall for a celebration. People from all walks of life came to celebrate the life of the Earl. The Times reported on the event, “It is given to few men to see so completely the fruit of their labours as he has done. To have changed the whole social condition of England to have emancipated women and children from a condition almost worse than slavery, to have reclaimed the neglected and regenerated the outcast, - these are the results which give the aged philanthropist a foremost place among those who have laboured for the welfare of England.

His initiatives were being built on all over the country by other men with vision; men like Dr Barnardo; it was almost an age of philanthropy, taking the lead of Shaftesbury. He still took on presidencies and took part in the work of Societies where he was president. People saw him as the noble Earl, but in private he still battled with fits of depression. He was universally respected, in 1884 he received the Freedom of the City of London, although it should have been bestowed on him years earlier.

He was asked to chair a meeting in celebration of the fiftieth birthday of the great Baptist preacher, Charles Spurgeon. On his entering the Metropolitan Tabernacle the congregation all rose to their feet, cheering, clapping and waving handkerchiefs. This too was the time of Moody and Sankey’s second evangelistic tour of England and Scotland. The ageing Earl expressed delight at the move of God among the poor. “I should hardly have thought it possible if I had not seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. I accept it as the intervention of some very special, notable and miraculous sign that hundreds and thousands of these poorest of the poor should be brought to such a desire for the knowledge of the Gospel, and should be praying to be admitted into the fold of Christ.”

Shaftesbury, knowing he was soon going to die, told a friend that he could not bear the thought of leaving the world with so much misery in it. It was a hard winter and on a rare visit to his favourite Ragged School (he was fairly immobile and almost deaf by this time) he found children hungry. That winter ten thousand basins of soup and bread were handed out from his home in Grosvenor Square to the poor children and their families.

He was presented with a gift from the ex Ragged School children who were now responsible adults in society (300,000 ragged children had been turned into useful citizens). It read, “There are literally tens of thousands to whom your public and private acts have brought comfort and happiness, and in thus helping the helpless you have benefited the whole English-speaking people.”

One of the last things he did was help distribute the enormous sum of £60,000 that a complete stranger had sent him for the poor. Despite his body, eyesight and hearing failing him, he diligently chose many organisations to be beneficiaries of this generous gift, even though it took a lot out of him. He continued to chair some meetings and then went to regain his strength in Folkestone. He caught a chill which went to the lungs and it was clear he was going to die. He was sad that his final moments were not going to be at home at St Giles, but he looked forward to meeting his Saviour and seeing again his beloved wife and children who had gone before him. On the 1st October 1885 the great man died.

Shaftesbury had said he wanted to be buried at home, not at Westminster Abbey. Many wanted his wishes to be overturned, but they took his body to the Abbey for a service before sending it on to St Giles. 1,000 seats were left unreserved for the general public. Representatives came from 196 missions, schools, societies and funds, every one of which he had been involved with. The streets were lined with mourners and at least seven thousand packed Parliament Square in the steady rain. It was as if the whole of the slums of London had turned out to do him honour.

The Earl’s son, Cecil, wrote to a friend, “When I saw the crowd which lined the streets on Thursday as my father’s body was borne to the Abbey – the  halt, the blind, the maimed, the poor and the naked standing bare-headed in their rags amidst a pelting rain, patiently enduring to show their love and reverence to their departed friend, I thought it the most heart-stirring sight my eyes had ever looked upon; and I could only feel how happy was the man to whom it had been given t be thus useful in his life and thrice blessed in his death and to be laid at last to his long sleep amidst the sob of a great nation’s heart.”

Shaftesbury’s legacy still lives on today, nearly 150 years after his death. Some of his Societies continue to do great work today under the title The Shaftesbury Society. How pleased he would be. But oh how we need new Shaftesbury’s to rise up in these days!

 

From, “Shaftesbury, The Poor Man’s Earl, ,” by John Pollock, published by Lion Publishing plc in 1986.

And “Lord Shaftesbury,” by J L Hammond and Barbara Hammond, published by Penguin Books in 1923.

And, “Lord Shaftesbury, a portrait,” by Florence M G Higham, published by S C M Press in 1945.