The Almqvist Family is related to the Earls of Shaftesbury through marriage. The Earls of Shaftesbury were statesmen and important social reformers paving the way for classical liberalism.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, FRS, (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683) was an English statesman and peer. He held senior political office under both the Commonwealth of England and Charles II, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1661 to 1672 and Lord Chancellor from 1672 to 1673. He was a patron of the political philosopher John Locke, one of the fathers of classical liberalism with whom Shaftesbury collaborated with in writing the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina in 1669.

The level of religious tolerance portrayed in the Constitutions was acclaimed by Voltaire who advised, "Cast your eyes over the other hemisphere, behold Carolina, of which the wise Locke was the legislator."[8] The Constitutions introduced certain safeguards for groups seeking refuge for religious reasons.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (26 February 1671 – 16 February 1713) was an English peer, Whig politician, philosopher and writer.

Shaftesbury wrote the highly influential work, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. 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".[2][3]

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury Bt PC FRS (9 February 1711 – 27 May 1771) was a British peer and philanthropist, who was one of the leading figures in the foundation of the colony of Georgia and served as Lord Lieutenant of Dorset from 1734 until his death. 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 through the Oglethorpe Plan.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury KG (28 April 1801 – 1 October 1885, styled Lord Ashley from 1811 to 1851, was a British Tory politician, philanthropist, and social reformer. He was the eldest son of the 6th Earl of Shaftesbury and Lady Anne Spencer (daughter of the 4th Duke of Marlborough), and elder brother of Henry Ashley, MP. A social reformer who was called the "Poor Man's Earl", he campaigned for better working conditions, reform to lunacy laws, education and the limitation of child labour.

Nicholas Edmund Anthony Ashley-Cooper, born 1979 is a British Peer and the 12th (present) Earl of Shaftesbury. He is an Montan-Almqvist through his mother Christina Shaftesbury, herself of Montan-Almqvist descent.