ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. was one of the most eminent philanthropists of the nineteenth century. He was horn in London. was educated at Harrow and Christ Church, Oxford, and entered the House of Commons in 1826. remaining a member of the House until 1851, when he succeeded his father in the peerage. In 1834 he was made a Lord of the Admiralty, but political office had little at traction for him, and very soon after his elec tion to Parliament he entered upon what was to be his life's work—the reform of social and legal abuses. lle first devoted himself to the question of the insane, whose pitiful condition un der the barbarous mode of treatment then iu vogue stirred him to unceasing activity until a complete reform of the Lunacy Acts had been ef fected. Ile next gave his attention to the pas sage of a ten-hour factory hill. This was not accomplished until after fourteen years of agita tion (1847), in the course of which Shaftesbury eloquently pleaded the cause of the unhappy Lancashire operatives, of whose life he made a personal studs. The revelation of the fearful conditions of employment prevailing in the coal mines led to the act of 1S42, advocated by Shaftes bury, which abolished the iniquitous system of apprenticeship and forbade the employment of woolen and children under thirteen in the coal pits. Shaftesbury interested himself also in the
condition of the London chimney sweeps, in whose behalf he carried the celebrated Climbing Boys Act. He devoted much time to studying conditions in the slums of London, was chiefly instrumental in the erection of the so-called Ragged Schools, and was for thirty-nine years chairman .himself of the Ragged School Union. His Lodging House Act of 1851 was a great step forward in improving the housing of the poor. He caused the construction of a large number of model tenements at Battersea, and erected model cottages on his own estate. With the masses of the people Shaftesbury enjoyed immense popu larity. lle died October 1, 1885. His speeches, with an introduction by himself, were published in 1868. Consult Hodder, Life and Work of the Serenth Earl of Shaftesbury (3 vols., London, 1880).