Description

In the preface to this three-volume work of 1886, Edwin Hodder (1837-1904) writes that the seventh earl of Shaftesbury 'resisted every appeal that was made to him to allow his biography to be written'. In the end, he succumbed to the inevitable, and shared with Hodder, a professional author, both his archives and his memories. Anthony Ashley-Cooper (1801-85) was an evangelical Christian with a profound sense of the duty owed by the aristocracy to their country and to the less fortunate. He first came to prominence as the leader of the parliamentary campaign for shorter working hours, which led to the Factory Act of 1833. He also worked strenuously on behalf of miners, child chimney-sweeps, cotton spinners, and lunatics. Entering the House of Lords on his father's death, he extended his activities, especially towards the homeless and destitute of London, becoming the best-known philanthropist of his age.