Cooper, Anthony Ashley ___ 1801-1885 ___ British ___ politician

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Born in Richmond, near London, and the eldest son of ten children, Cooper was educated at Harrow and Christ College, Oxford. When only 25, he was elected as MP for Woodstock, a Shaftesbury family borough. He married Emily Cowper, whose real father was rumoured to be Lord Palmerston (who did marry Emily's mother when Lord Cowper died). They had ten children some of them beset with health problems. After an undistinguished few years, Cooper became, in 1832, the leader of the factory reform movement in the House of Commons. A year later he proposed a bill to restrict children's working time to ten hours. It was defeated, but the government nevertheless brought in new restrictions on child labour in the 1933 Factory Act. Some years later, in 1840, Lord Ashley helped set up the Children's Employment Commission which led to the Coal Mines Act prohibiting women and children from working underground. In 1851, on the death of his father, Cooper became the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. He continued to campaign for more restrictive legislation on child working hours, and his work led to the passing of the so-called Ten Hours Act in 1847. He also campaigned on education and was chairman of the Ragged Schools Union which established many schools for poor families.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - My birthday again

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1825-1885 ___ political religious self social family people

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
a bit about

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Southampton University Library

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Life and Work of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

May 2005, August 2008, March 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.