CD-ROM Aktief 1995 #3/CDA3.iso/cooking/vegsocuk.zip/MOVEMENT.TXT

Text File | 1995-03-13 | 13KB | 212 lines

                          VegSocUK Information Sheet
                          THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY (UK)

                          DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOVEMENT

   At various times throughout the history of humankind, people have registered
   their opposition to the cruel way in which animals are oppressed, and many
   have turned to a vegetarian way of life. For both ethical and economic
   reasons, countless millions of people throughout the world live on a
   vegetarian diet.

   A number of religions and beliefs have lent support to vegetarianism.
   Brahminism, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism all advocated an abstention
   from flesh foods. More recently, the Seventh Day Adventists and The Order of
   the Cross have advocated a vegetarian diet and many Hindus and some Roman
   Catholic groups adhere to a vegetarian diet.

    Early ideas

   Some early writers express their opposition to meat eating in no uncertain
   terms.  Plutarch stated: "I am astonished to think what appetite first
   induced man to taste of a dead carcass or what motive could suggest the
   notion of nourishing himself with the flesh of animals which he saw, just
   before, bleating, bellowing, walking, and looking about them." Ovid, in the
   fifteenth book of his "Metamorphoses", puts into the mouth of Medea a
   forcible disquisition upon the Golden Age: "Blest is the produce of the trees
   and in the herbs which the earth brings forth, and the human mouth was not
   polluted with blood." Seneca, the greatest of the Stoics wrote: "To abstain
   from the flesh of animals is to foster and to encourage innocence." In a
   later statement he claimed: "I resolved to abstain from flesh meat, and at
   the end of a year the habit of abstinence was not only easy but delightful."
   Pythagoras enjoined the abstention from the flesh of animals and his
   followers formed a vegetarian community.

   Other famous early vegetarians were Diogenes, Plato, Plotinus and Socrates.
   Vegetarianism was not uncommon among early Christians, and some monastic
   orders follow a vegetarian diet to this day. Famous writers such as Voltaire,
   Paley, Pope, Shelley, Bentham and Lamartine urged the desirability of a
   humane diet. Alexander Pope expressed the opinion that: "Nothing can be more
   shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood and
   abounding with the cries of expiring victims or with the limbs of dead
   animals scattered or hung up here and there."

   Sir Richard Phillips, who died in 1842 and was High Sheriff of the county of
   Middlesex, was an ardent vegetarian from the age of twelve when he visited a
   slaughterhouse. The philanthropist and prison reformer, John Howard, was a
   practising vegetarian whose influence and concern affected many aspects of
   life in his own time and since. He claimed that his diet gave him immunity
   against "gaol fever" which was prevalent in the many filthy prisons he
   visited.

    Formation of the Vegetarian Society

   Not until the nineteenth century was there any attempt to organise a
   vegetarian movement in this country.  In 1807, the Reverend William Cowherd,
   the founder of the Bible Christian Church in Salford, advanced the principle
   of abstinence from flesh-eating. One of his followers was Mr Joseph
   Brotherton MP, who became prominent in the Vegetarian Society and became one
   of its presidents. Two followers of the Reverend Cowherd, the Reverend
   William Metcalfe and the Reverend James Clark, set sail for the United States
   with thirty-nine other members of the Bible Christian Church in 1817. Some of
   them remained vegetarian and provided a nucleus for the American vegetarian
   movement. The wife of Mr Joseph Brotherton wrote the first cookery book
   devoted to vegetarian recipes. This was published in 1812. The first
   vegetarian hospital was established in Ramsgate in 1846 with Mr and Mrs
   William Horsell, both prominent vegetarians in charge of it.

   The Vegetarian Society was formed as a result of a meeting held at the
   hospital, Northwood Villa, on 30 September 1847. A resolution was passed
   unanimously that a society be formed called the Vegetarian Society. Mr James
   Simpson became the president, Mr William Horsell the secretary and Mr William
   Oldham the treasurer. The following year the first annual meeting was held in
   Manchester at Hayward's Hotel. There were then 478 members of the Society and
   232 people attended the dinner which followed the AGM. A meeting of London
   vegetarians was held in 1849, and they decided to form a committee to spread
   vegetarianism in London. The first issue of the Vegetarian Messenger, a
   monthly penny magazine, came out in September 1849, and nearly 5000 copies
   were circulated. Mr Isaac Pitman, of shorthand fame, spoke at the second
   annual meeting of the Society in 1849 and stated that he had been a
   vegetarian for eleven years. In the 1850s meetings were held in many parts of
   the country, and a number of local branches were formed. As early as 1851 the
   slogan "live and let live" was used in the Vegetarian Messenger, and
   alternatives were being suggested to leather shoes.

   The first president of the Vegetarian Society, Mr James Simpson, died in
   1859. He had spent considerable sums of money helping the cause to develop in
   its early days. Alderman W Harvey JP followed as president. Another prominent
   vegetarian of the period was the Reverend James Clark. He became a vegetarian
   at the age of twenty-two and was associated with the movement for over forty
   years. For a long time he was the secretary of the Society. Professor F W
   Newman was president from 1873-84. He was a controversial character,
   influencing the Society to accept associate members and refusing to accept
   that anything else should be associated with vegetarianism. Until then, many
   had combined vegetarianism with a campaign against alcohol and smoking.

   In London in 1875 a Dietetic Reform Society was formed. Members abstained
   from alcohol and tobacco as well as being vegetarian. This was followed by
   the London Food Reform Society in 1877. A young doctor named T R Allinson was
   a member of the Society. Later, the Society dropped the word "London" from
   its title and became the National Food Reform Society. This led to some
   antagonism with the Vegetarian Society, but the National Food Reform Society
   merged with the Vegetarian Society in 1885, and it then became the London
   branch of the Vegetarian Society. Problems followed, and in 1888 the London
   branch broke away from the Vegetarian Society and formed the London
   Vegetarian Society, which soon flourished as a second national society. A
   paper known as "The Vegetarian" was brought out in 1888 and was followed by
   the "Vegetarian News" in 1921.

   "The Vegetarian Messenger" was renamed "The Vegetarian" in 1953, and in 1958
   the two societies decided to combine their magazines; the "Vegetarian News"
   and "The Vegetarian" were replaced by "The Britsh Vegetarian". This continued
   as a bi-monthly magazine until 1971.

   In October 1971 the new national Society launched a monthly newspaper called
   "The Vegetarian" which rapidly grew in popularity so that it achieved a
   circulation in the region of 50,000 copies each month. In 1977 the newspaper
   was replaced by an A4 format magazine. The "New Vegetarian" continued as such
   until it was renamed "Alive" in 1978 with a view to increasing the magazine's
   general appeal. However, this change of title was not popular with many
   vegetarians, and there was not the degree of support among non-vegetarians as
   had been hoped for. It ceased to be a monthly magazine and became bi-monthly,
   and in 1979 the Society's AGM decided that it wished the magazine to revert
   to its former title; so it once again became "The Vegetarian" in late 1980,
   becoming monthly in 1992 and after the advent of three rival magazines on the
   bookstalls revert