Biography

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Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury (1801-1885)

Shaftesbury is known in history by several names: Anthony Ashley Cooper; Lord Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord Shaftesbury. Although technically he did not hold the title Shaftesbury until 1851, he will be referred to as such throughout this page.

Shaftesbury was born in London in 1801, and was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford. He had a bleak and unhappy childhood: his father was severe and his schooldays were gruelling. His upbringing was strictly utilitarian. G.F.A. Best, in his 1964 biography of Shaftesbury, said:

Shaftesbury disliked trade unions, but decided as a schoolboy to give his life to the interests of the poor. He hated cruelty and unmerited suffering. He was extremely aristocratic in bearing, manner and opinions.

• 1826: he became M.P. for Woodstock, a rotten borough.
• 1831: he stood as an anti-reform candidate in a by-election. Shaftesbury showed no interest in the parliamentary debates on limiting working hours in factories - he apparently did not even know of Sadler's Select Committee. The Committee's report changed him: he offered his services to Sadler, and took over Sadler's work in the Commons after Sadler lost his seat in 1832. From then until 1850 he became leader of the working man's cause in the Commons.
• 1851: he went into the House of Lords as the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury
• 1885: he died

The Factory Cause

Shaftesbury adopted the factory cause in 1832 from religious zeal. He was an Anglican evangelical, as were most of the Ten-hour men. Shaftesbury clung to the factory movement as a crusade, saying, "to me it appeared an affair less of policy than of religion". He was an impractical man.

He often advised meetings of Short-Time Committees to pray, as their best course of action. It is difficult to assess how much he was concerned for factories to forward his own political career, or for an impersonal principle.

Shaftesbury's other causes

There were far too many of these, so his energies were dissipated (unlike those of Cobden and Bright)

• waifs, strays and orphans. He set up Ragged Schools, and was chairman of the Ragged School Union for 39 years
• drugs, especially the opium question
• Bible societies - probably his main concern
• climbing boys - chimney sweeps. Shaftesbury was helped here by Charles Kingsley
• colliery children: as a result of Shaftesbury's work, the 1842 Mines Act was passed
• Y.M.C.A. - Shaftesbury was a founder-member

He was unable to give concentrated attention to ONE cause - Chartism personified! Also he was difficult to work with since he took all criticism as a personal slight and as being anti-religious.

Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham were able to rely on the free traders and the party vote to block Shaftesbury's 10-Hour clause in 1844 and his Bill of 1846. They wanted to avoid the debate on the Corn Laws through factory legislation.

Joseph Rayner Stephens said that 'the unsteadiness, time-serving and tergiversation of Lord Ashley [is] inglorious, inconsistent miserable [and] contemptible' and commented that 'the name of Lord Ashley would for ever stink in the nostrils of honest men'. Richard Oastler's assessment was, 'Never was a man so deeply pledged, never so much trusted. Talk of the treachery of others; Lord Ashley has betrayed the poor'.

Nevertheless, despite his limitations,

• he struck deep into many consciences
• he kept the subject very much alive

He was the victim of his own limitations and of the 'Condition of England Question' and ultimately, factory reform was not the primary answer.