Lord Shaftesbury’s diary for 29 December 1852
The entry comments on the change of government. The Ten Hours Act had passed in 1852, limiting the number of hours to be worked by children — one of the many welfare measures that Shaftesbury initiated and championed. ‘...Graham, Newcastle, Gladstone, my greatest enemies and most spiteful opponents, are again installed in power .... [They] resisted the 10 Hours Bill with bitter and laboured pertinacity, exhaustive statistics to prove inevitable ruin; exhaustive eloquence to raise alarm, pledged their stations and their characters to the fatality of the measure. Well it has prospered. I praise God, singularly prospered ...’
