3 August 1872 A.D. Lord Shaftesbury: Friend of the Poor
Graves,
Dan. “Lord Shaftesbury: Friend of the Poor.” Christianity.com. Apr 2007. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/lord-shaftesbury-friend-of-the-poor-11630562.html.
Accessed 14 May 2014.
Although the son of an earl, Ashley Cooper was
neglected and abused. His father bullied him. Bringing him to one of the
boarding schools which he would attend, his father knocked down the sensitive
boy at the door and advised the tutor to do the same. Ashley carried scars of
depression with him all his life. However, over the passage of time, the
cruelties the tenderhearted boy had suffered were transformed into good: he was
always prone to sympathize with the sufferings of others.
Having entered Parliament as a convinced,
evangelical Christian, Ashley soon learned of the horrors that were the lot of
the lower classes in England. Shocked by what he heard of the treatment of the
insane, he personally toured asylums and learned first-hand what was going on.
He then rose in Parliament with the facts and convinced fellow members to take
action. Next he tackled the issue of children's working hours. That became a
fifteen year fight.
Just to list all the causes Ashley championed would
fill most of this page. He labored long to see that Christian
education--"ragged schools"--was provided to street urchins. There
were then no national schools and had been none since the time of Alfred the
Great. He pressed for improved sewage systems. A terrible cholera epidemic
which took 50,000 lives nationwide made his point. He backed efforts at
evangelization (including the work of Moody and Sankey). He pressed for
legislation to end the abominable practices of forcing half naked women and
children to haul coal and pump water long hours in virtual darkness. Often they
were not allowed above ground at all.
Boys were freed from work as chimney sweeps thanks
to his determination. He combatted white slavery, in which girls were sold into
prostitution. Out of his straightened finances (his steward embezzled from him)
he did all he could to feed starving children. When he became Lord Shaftesbury
he built cottages and improved the amenities of his estate which had been
woefully neglected by his self-centered father. Shaftesbury, was an advocate of
better housing for the poor. His agitation led to reforms and on this day, August 3, 1872, he laid the foundation
stone of a large housing complex named after him at Battersea.
Lord Shaftesbury was fierce in his conviction that
Christ must be the center of a living faith. He spoke harshly against deistic
tendencies. Yet he was a warm friend of the atheistic Prime Minister Palmerston
who gently mocked his belief. The people, however, did not mock. When he
preached Christ, they listened with respect. At his funeral, hundreds of
thousands of poor stood hatless in a pouring rain to show their love for the
man who had loved them. He is credited with possibly preventing revolution and
certainly with easing class tensions.
Bibliography:
1. Joy, James Richard. Ten
Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century. Chatauqua Press, 1902.
2. "Cooper, Anthony
Ashley." Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by Leslie Stephen and
Sidney Lee. London: Oxford University Press, 1921 - 1996.
3. Pollock, John Charles.
Shaftesbury: the poor man's earl. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985.
4. "Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley
Cooper." The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F. L.
Cross and E. A. Livingstone. Oxford, 1997.
5. Singer, Charles. A Short History
of Scientific Ideas to 1900. Oxford University Press, 1959.
Last updated April, 2007.
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