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The best-loved politician and social reformer of nineteenth century England, Lord Shaftesbury's deep compassion for the poor became legendary. He campaigned tirelessly to limit factory hours, to stop the use of boys as chimney sweeps and children in coalmines, and to develop universal education. As a result he changed the character of English society forever. Areas covered in this important new biography include his upbringing and education; his work as a politician and his campaign for mental health; factory and industrial reforms; campaigns for climbing boys and for better sanitation and housing; his contribution towards the founding of the Bible Society, CPAS, London City Mission, Ragged School Union and CMS; his role as a defender of the Protestant faith and the campaign against ritualism; his personal theology.

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Lettres et linguistique

Central government

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Publié par	Lion Hudson
Date de parution	08 octobre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780745957319
Langue	English

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SHAFTESBURY
THE GREAT REFORMER
RICHARD TURNBULL
Copyright 2010 Richard Turnbull This edition copyright 2010 Lion Hudson
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Published by Lion an imprint of Lion Hudson plc Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 0 7459 5348 9 e-ISBN 978 0 7459 5731 9
First edition 2010 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
All rights reserved
Text Acknowledgments Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan and Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved. The NIV and New International Version trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Born into the Age of Reform: The Early Years 1801-1822

2 The Calling of Public Life: 1823-1829

3 The Stirrings of Faith: Conversion to Evangelicalism in the 1820s

4 Life, Politics and Mission: 1829-1836

5 The Asylum: Shaftesbury and Mental Health 1828-1845

6 Mills and Mines: 1832-1848

7 The Emerging Protestant: 1838-1845

8 Sweeps, Sanitation and the Sabbath: 1840-1851

9 Walking the Metropolis: Shaftesbury and the London City Mission from the 1830s to the 1880s

10 Educating the Poor: Shaftesbury and the Ragged Schools from the 1840s to the 1880s

11 The Earl: Campaigner for the Poor 1851-1854

12 Bishop-Maker: 1855-1866

13 Regulating Ritual: 1866-1884

14 A Passionate Faith: Understanding Shaftesbury s Motivation

Conclusion

Appendix: The Millennium

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index
This book is dedicated to my family. Caroline, my wife, and my children - Sarah, Katie, Matt, and Rebecca - have had to live with the Earl of Shaftesbury for a good number of years at the meal table, in family quizzes, and even on holiday. I would also like to thank my eldest daughter, Sarah, and Sam Allen, both history undergraduates at the time, for their help in compiling the index. I am grateful to Lion Hudson for publishing the book and to Kate Kirkpatrick and Miranda Powell, my editors. I am also immensely grateful to the Trustees of the Latimer Trust for financial support of my research. The final writing took place during a period of study leave from my post as Principal of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. For that privilege I would like to thank both the Council of Wycliffe and my staff colleagues.
Richard Turnbull
Oxford, Summer 2009
ABBREVIATIONS

Bible Society
British and Foreign Bible Society
CMS
Church Missionary Society
CPAS
Church Pastoral Aid Society
LCM
London City Mission
LMS
London Missionary Society
London Society
London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Amongst the Jews
RSU
Ragged School Union
INTRODUCTION

The representatives of some 200 voluntary societies attended the funeral in Westminster Abbey of the Earl of Shaftesbury on 8 October 1885. These institutions ranged from missionary societies to benevolent associations for the poor. They included orphanages, schools, and asylums. There were also some surprises. Alongside those from the London City Mission and the Church Missionary Society were not only the Cab Drivers Benevolent Association and the Saturday Half-Holiday Movement, but also the London Anti-Vivisection Society and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Times reported that the gentlemen s clubs and other significant buildings in St James Street and Pall Mall lowered their window blinds as a mark of respect. Apart from the great and the good, over 1,000 members of the public were able to attend, and to sing Charles Wesley s hymn, Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above . This was also the opportunity for those from all sections of society to show their respect and affection for one who had benefited so many of his fellow countrymen , the great philanthropist , as the paper described him. 1 The early biographer of the Earl, or, perhaps better, the chronicler of his life, Edwin Hodder, publishing in 1886-87, described the scene. Thousands had gathered in Grosvenor Square from where the funeral cort ge departed, whose hearts were heavy, and whose eyes were red with weeping for the best friend the poor ever had . 2 The streets were lined with people; as the procession neared Parliament there were, on one side of the road, deputations from many of the social and Christian missions associated with Shaftesbury carrying banners with biblical verses. Bands played at regular intervals and those heading the delegations joined the procession as it made its way to Westminster Abbey. 3
Even allowing for the nature of biography in the late nineteenth century the assessment of the later observer of the Victorian age, G. M. Young, that Sir Robert Peel, who died in 1850, was the only English statesman for whose death the poor have cried in the streets , 4 requires considerable qualification. What was it that brought together the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Mayor of London, royalty, and members of both Houses of Parliament alongside the committee members and beneficiaries of numerous small and disparate voluntary groups?
Perhaps it seems strange to commence a biography with a description of the funeral of the subject. Shaftesbury himself pointed to observing as a child the funeral of a pauper as one of the formative influences on his compassion in life. Shaftesbury was a complicated and complex figure, but also a towering one. His death marked the end of two eras, not just one. The age which had formed the Earl s character was one of paternalism, aristocracy, deference, and duty. This was already passing when he was born. The age in which he lived, mainly that of Victoria, although the Queen herself had another sixteen years to live when Shaftesbury died, was both a romantic and a religious period. Shaftesbury encapsulated the ideal of the Christian philanthropist and evangelist. That combination was his life s passion. Religion and life were not to be separated but integrated. The state and the voluntary society had equal claims to meet the social and religious needs of the nation. Sadly his death also marked the end, or at least the eventide, of the era of religion s engagement with the public life of the nation in such a unique fashion.
Shaftesbury turned down high office because it would interfere with his calling. As late as 1866 he refused the Cabinet offices of Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Lord President of the Council. To have taken government office would have required him to withdraw myself from the many and various pursuits which have occupied a very large portion of my life , and there were yet fourteen hundred thousand women, children and young persons to be brought under the protection of the Factory Acts . 5 This demonstrates his great principle and strength of character. It also shows his single-minded passion and commitment to the pursuit of justice and relief for the poor as well as, of course, to their salvation. Whether Shaftesbury was suited temperamentally and emotionally for high office is another matter. He had a dark, unstable side that ran in the family and indeed does so even to the present day. Within six weeks of the tenth Earl being murdered in 2005, the eleventh Earl died of a heart attack at just twenty-seven years of age. Two years later the tenth Earl s third wife and her brother were convicted of his murder. The seventh Earl throughout his life had endured deep anxiety, mood swings, bouts of depression, even periods in a dark abyss. Others too were only too aware of this darker side to his psychological make-up. As early as 1821 Henry Fox, an Oxford contemporary, sensed a dash of madness in him. 6 Florence Nightingale made the memorable comment that had not the Earl of Shaftesbury been committed to the reform of the asylum, he would have been in one. 7 For much of his life, the burden of debt bore heavily upon Shaftesbury - he was not the best manager of money nor judge of whom to employ on his estate. When this is added to his deep religious understanding of the depravity of human beings, the sense of being alone in much of his campaigning, and his own attitudes to duty and role in life then it is not surprising that he faced such oscillations in mood and sense of worth.
So, let us return to his death and funeral. The Times stated that in Lord Shaftesbury there has passed away the most eminent social reformer of the present century one of the most honoured figures of our contemporary history the friend of the poor, the degraded and the outcast . The paper later added, Nothing is more astonishing in the catalogue of his exploits than their variety and comprehensiveness Lord Shaftesbury fills and will fill a special place in the annals of this century. 8
This book explores why.
C HAPTER 1
BORN INTO THE AGE OF REFORM: THE EARLY YEARS 1801-1822

On 23 February 1807 the House of Commons voted through the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade by 283 votes to 16. Shaftesbury was less than six years old. Slavery itself became illegal in 1833, the year of the death of the great campaigner William Wilberforce. At that point Shaftesbury, in the Commons as Lord Ashley, was preparing to embark upon the task of the campaign for children working in factories - exactly what Wilberforce had been criticized for ignoring, at least by the radical William Cobbett. A year earlier the Whig prime minister, Earl Grey, much to Lord Ashley s chagrin, started on the path of transforming the political system itself with the Reform Bill. This was a modest measure. It was designed to remove the historic representation from some scarcely populated towns