George Rose, in profile, in a roundel. Stipple engraving by T. Blood after A. Wivell, 1818.

"He wished to encourage the deserving poor. In 1793 he had obtained legislative cover for friendly societies, which by 1803 had 600,000 members. He published Observations on poor relief in 1803, decrying workhouses except for the feeble and insane. Later, in 1814-16, he tried to regulate asylums for the insane through legislation. During 1803–4 he suggested statutory regulation of industrial relations in cotton manufacture and championed a minimum wage for cotton weavers. He believed his proposals to alleviate unemployment were more realistic than Pitt's or Whitbread's. He was no advocate of universal education, but supported maritime schools and was a champion of seamen's welfare. He secured an institution for vaccine inoculation in 1808. In 1813-14 he favoured applying the apprentice system to all trades and criticized agricultural protectionism because it raised the price of bread for the poor. A member of the poor-law committee in the 1812 parliament, he secured an inquiry into London beggary on 8 June 1815 and reported its progress to the house. Given leave to introduce a bill to promote savings banks, he wrote a pamphlet in support in 1816 and finally secured his objective on 23 May 1817"--Oxford dctionary of national biography