Lord Shaftesbury - the reformer - part 1 of 4
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Ian Hislop looks at the condition of children working in nineteenth century
Britain and the work of the
Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury to reform this.
The
Shaftesbury Memorial in
Piccadilly Circus, London, erected in 1893, was designed to commemorate the philanthropic works of the
7th Earl of Shaftesbury.. The Memorial is crowned by
Alfred Gilbert's aluminium statue of
Anteros as a nude, butterfly-winged archer. This is officially titled
The Angel of Christian Charity, but has become popularly, if mistakenly, known as
Eros. The use of a nude figure on a public monument was controversial at the time, but the statue has become a
London icon.
Born in London and known informally as
Lord Ashley until his father's death, he was educated at
Harrow School and
Christ Church, Oxford.
Ashley's early 'family life' was loveless, an aim common amongst the
British upper classes, similar to the fictional childhood of
Esther Summerson vividly narrated in the early chapters of
Charles Dickens' novel
Bleak House.
G.F.A Best in his biography
Shaftesbury accounts for this arrangement: "Ashley grew up without any experience of parental love. He saw little of his parents, and when duty or necessity compelled them to take notice of him they were formal and frightening." This difficult childhood was softened by the affection he received from his housekeeper
Maria Millis, and his sisters. Millis provided for Ashley a model of
Christian love that would form the basis for much of his later social activism and philanthropic work, as
Best explains: "What did touch him was the reality, and the homely practicality, of the love which her
Christianity made her feel towards the unhappy child. She told him bible stories, she taught him a prayer."
Despite this powerful reprieve, school became another source of misery for the young Ashley, whose education at
Manor House from 1808 to 1813 introduced a "more disgusting range of horrors". Shaftesbury himself shuddered to recall those years, "The place was bad, wicked, filthy; and the treatment was starvation and cruelty."
He became a
Tory MP (
Member of Parliament) in 1826, and almost immediately became a leader of the movement for factory reform. He was responsible for promoting a plethora of reform causes, including the
Factory Acts of 1847 and 1853, the Ten
Hour Bill, as well as the
Mines and Collieries Act 1842 and the
Lunacy Act 1845. One of his chief interests was the welfare of children, and he was chairman of the
Ragged Schools Union and a keen supporter of
Florence Nightingale. He was also involved as patron and president in the field of model dwellings companies, which sought to improve the housing of working classes in
England.