I live in Shaftesbury House. Apparently it's named after the same man as Shaftesbury Avenue. Who was that

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Q.� And what did he do

A.� Shaftesbury was a philanthropist, reformer and pioneer of ragged schools. I guess your home was built in the mid-1880s and named as a posthumous tribute.

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Q.� Absolutely spot on! A biography of the great man

A.� Antony was born at 24 Grosvenor Square, London, on 28 Apri1, 1801, his father a younger son of the family. His mother Anne was fourth daughter of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. His father became the 6th earl in 1811. He was educated at Harrow, and at Christ Church, Oxford, and obtained a first in classics in 1822.

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Q.� A political career

A.� He entered parliament as Lord Ashley in 1826 as MP for Woodstock, a family 'pocket borough'. He was returned for Dorchester in 1830 and 1831, and by 1834 Sir Robert Peel made him a lord of the admiralty. The highest office beckoned - yet he remained something of an independent spirit among politicians and became fascinated by philanthropic reform.

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Q.� So where did Ashley turn his good works

A.� Initially to the treatment of lunatics. He was appalled by the conditions in which they were kept - and helped pass a bill to improve their lot. He continued to work for them through his life.

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Q.� Next

A.� To factory workers - including children. He visited many of the northern manufacturers and was shocked to see the many workers who had been crippled and mutilated by their work. May of their bodies were distorted 'just like a crooked alphabet'. He tried to limit the number of hours in a working day to 10, but the government would have none of it. It was eventually passed in 1847. On visits to collieries, he found many women working in dismal underground conditions. He also discovered children, sometimes as young as five, chained to the mines' trucks.

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Q.� What about chimney sweeps

A.� An act of 1842 abolished the system of apprenticeship that had led to the abuses and excluded boys under 13 from working underground. Ashley also got an act passed to protect 'climbing boys' - chimney-sweeps' apprentices - who often had to climb up the flue to get their job done. Many died.

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Q.� And ragged schools

A.� A rather patronising nickname for 'industrial feeding schools'. (They were also set up by Dr Thomas Barnardo. Click here for an feature on him). The idea was to educate poor children so they could be of use in the ever-expanding industrial Britain. Cynics might say that they were merely being used as fodder for the factory production lines - but this was an age when hard work and enterprise could bring�high rewards.� For 39 years Ashley - who became Lord Shaftesbury upon the death of his father in 1851 - was chairman of the Ragged School Union, and during that time 300,000 children were brought back into society through the school system.

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Q.� Any other philanthropic acts

A.� Housing reforms. Shaftesbury soon become convinced of the important influence of people's homes upon their habits and character. He�believed that people would feel better, behave better and live longer if their housing were improved. After a speech to the House of Lords on the subject, the Lodging House Act was passed. Charles Dickens described as the best piece of legislation ever to come from an English parliament. Other housing improvements followed, including the Shaftesbury Park Estate, containing 1,200 houses for 8,000 in Battersea.

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Q.� And other memorials

A.� Shaftesbury died on 1 October 1885. The statue of Eros in Piccadilly, London, is a memorial to his work. Its real name is the Angel of Charity. Nearby Shaftesbury Avenue is also a fitting tribute to the great man. This magnificent thoroughfare, now centre of London's theatre district, opened in 1886, after the demolition of some of the appalling slums that Shaftesbury fought to eliminate.

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by Steve Cunningham

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