Lord Shaftesbury

Return across the churchyard, through the Lych Gate and down Church Hill…
On your right you will see a plaque commemorating Anthony Ashley Cooper - Lord Shaftesbury…
As the plaque records, whilst at Harrow, he was deeply affected by watching a pauper’s funeral. He later became a Tory MP (Member of Parliament) in 1826, and a leader of the  movement for factory reform.
He was largely responsible for the Factory Acts of 1847 and 1853, as well as the Coal Mines Act of 1842 and the Lunacy Act 1845. One of his chief interests was the welfare of children, and he was chairman of the Ragged Schools Union and a keen supporter of Florence Nightingale.
Shaftesbury was a proponent of the Restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. A committed Christian and a loyal Englishman, Shaftesbury argued for a Jewish return because of what he saw as the political and economic advantages to England and because he believed that it was God’s will.
The Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus, London, erected in 1893, was designed to commemorate his philanthropic works. The Memorial is crowned by Alfred Gilbert's aluminium statue of Anteros as a nude, butterfly-winged archer.

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