Shaftesbury, Earl of

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of (1801-85), statesman, b. London.

In Lord Shaftesbury's time, the children of poor people worked in factories and coal mines from the age of seven.

In some coal mines, even younger children worked - in at least one case, a child of three.

These children worked in terrible conditions and for long hours, and were often thrashed by their masters or overseers.

Shaftesbury was a rich man but he visited the slums of the growing towns of England and the places where these children worked.

Then he asked Parliament to pass laws to stop them working. At first, the answer he received was, 'No.' The factories and coal mines were making England a rich country. But Shaftesbury kept on telling Parliament about the sufferings of the working children, and, in the end, Acts were passed to stop them.

For example, the Coal Mines Act of 1842 said that women and children under thirteen must not work in coal mines, and the Factory Act of 1850 limited the amount of time they were allowed to work in cotton mills.

The statue called Eros, in Piccadilly Circus, London, is a memorial to Lord Shaftesbury and was erected in 1893.

See The Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen of Antony, Earl of Shaftesbury ~ Benjamin Rand