Anthony Ashley Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury (1711–1771) was a prominent figure in Augustan England, active in politics and philanthropy. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1734 until his death.

Family legacy

Shaftesbury's father, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, died in February, 1713 leaving him fatherless in infancy. He grew up learning about the achievements of his father and great grandfather and revering his family history. In 1732, he published a new edition of his father's influential work, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, also known as Shaftesbury’s Characteristics. The book was among the most influential of the British Enlightenment; historian Benjamin Rand described the 3rd Earl as the “greatest Stoic of modern times.”

Shaftesbury also commissioned a biography, and retained Benjamin Martyn for the project. He had become well acquainted with Martyn, Secretary to the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America when he became a member of that organization at its first annual meeting in 1733.

Georgia Trustees

Shaftesbury was elected to the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America in 1733, less than a year after the group was created by royal charter. In light of his family’s intellectual tradition, he may have been among those Trustees who, following James Oglethorpe, saw the Georgia colony as a potential model society as well as one that addressed several more pragmatic purposes (see the Oglethorpe Plan). By 1750, however, Shaftesbury at a more mature age replaced Oglethorpe as a guiding force among the Trustees, first tilting it in a more conventional direction then preparing Georgia to become a royal colony in 1752.