Review’ for December 1846. His interest was especially intensified in two movements: the education of the neglected poor, and the improvement of the dwellings of the people.
The movement for ‘ragged schools,’ as they were now called, or ‘industrial feeding schools,’ as Mr. Sheriff Watson of Aberdeen had proposed to call them, had already been inaugurated in the northern kingdom. Ashley became the champion of the cause in parliament. In 1848 he told the House of Commons that ten thousand children had been got into ragged schools, who, there was every reason to hope, would be reclaimed. For thirty-nine years he held the office of chairman of the Ragged School Union, and during that time as many as three hundred thousand children were brought under the influence of the society. The Shoeblack Brigade was the result of another effort for the same class. At one time it numbered 306 members, and its earnings in one year were 12,000l. The Refuge and Reformatory Union was a kindred movement; ultimately it came to have 589 homes, accommodating fifty thousand children. Lord Palmerston's bill for the care and reformation of juvenile offenders, which has had so beneficial an influence, was a fruit of Shaftesbury's influence.
Very early in his career he had become profoundly impressed with the important influence of the dwellings of the people on their habits and character. To the miserable condition of their homes he attributed two-thirds of the disorders that prevailed in the community. In 1851 he drew attention to the subject in the House of Lords. The Lodging House Act was passed, which Dickens described as the best piece of legislation that ever proceeded from the English parliament. This, however, represented but a small portion of his labours for the improvement of houses. The views which he so clearly and forcibly proclaimed led many to take practical steps to reform the abuse. The Peabody scheme was at least indirectly the fruit of his representations. On 3 Aug. 1872 he laid the foundation-stone of buildings at Battersea, called the Shaftesbury Park Estate, containing twelve hundred houses, accommodating eight thousand people. On his own estate at Wimborne St. Giles he built a model village, where the cottages were furnished with all the appliances of civilised life, and each had its allotment of a quarter of an acre, the rent being only a shilling a week. As chairman of the central board of public health he effected many reforms, especially during the visitation of cholera in 1849. He was also chairman of a sanitary commission for the Crimea, in regard to which Miss Nightingale wrote that ‘it saved the British army.’
Besides originating and actively promoting to the very end of his life the social reforms now enumerated, Shaftesbury took an active interest in the Bible, Missionary, and other religious societies, and was very closely identified with some of the most important of them. Of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was president for a great many years. The London City Mission, pursuing its labours among the London poor, deeply interested him. The Church Missionary Society, as well as the missionary societies of the nonconformists, found in him a most ardent friend. He had great pleasure in the Young Men's Christian Association. He was the chief originator of a movement for holding religious services in theatres and music halls—a movement which he had to defend in the House of Lords from the charge of lowering religion by associating its services with scenes of frivolity.
Of the variety and comprehensiveness of the objects to which his life had been directed an idea may be formed from the enumeration of the city chamberlain when the freedom of the city of London was conferred upon him. The chamberlain referred to his labours in connection with the Climbing Boys Act, the Factory and Ten Hours Acts, Mines and Collieries Regulation Acts, the establishment of ragged schools, training ships, and refuges for boys and girls, his share in the abolition of slavery, the protection of lunatics, the promotion of the City Mission and the Bible Society, and likewise his efforts for the protection of wronged and tortured dumb animals.
In religion Shaftesbury was a very cordial and earnest supporter of evangelical views. Ritualism and rationalism were alike abhorrent to him. While attached to the church of England his sympathies were with evangelicalism wherever he found it. Sometimes he expressed himself against opponents with an excessive severity of language, inconsistent with his usual moderation. All movements in parliament and elsewhere in harmony with evangelical views, such as Sir Andrew Agnew's for the protection of the Lord's day, the union of religion and education, and opposition to the church of Rome, found in him a cordial advocate. But his heart was especially moved by whatever concerned the true welfare of the people. Though the reverse of a demagogue, retaining always a certain aristocratic bearing as one who valued his social rank, he was as profoundly interested in the people as the most ardent democrat. Hating socialism and all
