Henry B. Amos
Scottish activist and draper (1869–1946)
Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp
(m. 1899; died 1905)
Henry Brown Amos (24 May 1869 – 22 October 1946) was a Scottish activist for animal rights, vegetarianism, humanitarianism and against vivisection and hunting. He also worked for some time as a draper. Amos held a number of positions within organisations dedicated to animals and vegetarianism, and co-founded the League Against Cruel Sports in 1924.
Biography
Amos was born in Tyninghame, Scotland, on 24 May 1869.[1] He first became interested in vegetarianism when he was a teenager, in about 1886.[2] He later worked as a draper and married Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp (1869–1905) on 7 February 1899; they had four children, two of whom died in infancy.[1]
Amos was a member of the Humanitarian League and former member of the RSPCA.[3] In the mid-1890s he was an organizer in London for the Vegetarian Federal Union.[1] In 1895, he was Hon. Secretary of the Vegetarian Cycling & Athletic Club and was associated with Sidney H. Beard and the Order of the Golden Age (1901–1903).[4] He succeeded Albert Broadbent as Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (1913–1914).[4] In 1915, he published a short pamphlet on cooking vegetarian meals.[5]
Amos co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (later the League Against Cruel Sports) in 1924 with Ernest Bell and George Greenwood.[3][6] The league aimed to abolish the hunting of deer, foxes, hares, otters, and the coursing of hares and rabbits.[3] Amos' letters campaigning against rabbit coursing in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924.[7] He organized the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee the same year.[7]
Amos became highly critical of the RSPCA because, during this time, they were unwilling to take action against hunting.[3][8] His published criticism of the RSPCA caused an internal conflict and because of this Greenwood resigned from the League in 1927 and Bell resigned in 1931.[7][9][10] The League began producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports which Amos edited.[7] According to E. S. Turner, the journal "criticised the RSPCA for its toleration of fox-hunting, and attacked the Church for sheltering behind the RSPCA."[11] In the January 1927 edition, Amos noted that "little has been done either by religion or education to stem the tide of cruelty involved in hunting."[12]
In 1935, Amos was jailed briefly for throwing a copy of Henry Stephens Salt's Creed of Kinship through a stained glass window at Exeter Cathedral during evensong,[3] as a protest against the church's endorsement of hunting.[1] Suffering for years from a bronchial illness, he was eventually forced to retire from his work with the League at the end of 1936.[1]
Amos died in Hendon, north London, on 22 October 1946, at the age of 77.[1][2]
Selected publications
- The Food Reformer's Year Book and Health Annual (editor for multiple years, 1909)
- Economical, Nourishing Dishes for Times of Stress and How to Cook Them (1915)
- Opinions in Favour of Vegetarianism by Leading Temperance Reformers (1919)
References
- ^ a b c d e f Baker, Anne Pimlott (2004). "Amos, Henry Brown (1869–1946), campaigner against field sports". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53036. ISBN 9780198614128. Retrieved 1 July 2020. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ^ a b "Henry Brown Amos (1869-1946)". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. December 1946.
- ^ a b c d e May, Allyson N. (2013). The Fox-Hunting Controversy, 1781–2004: Class and Cruelty. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-1-4094-6069-5.
- ^ a b "Henry Brown Amos". henrysalt.co.uk.
- ^ "Literary Notices". Good Health. 13 (2): 31. January 1915.
- ^ Kean, Hilda. (1998). Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain Since 1800. Reaktion Books. p. 185. ISBN 1-86189-014-1
- ^ a b c d Allen, Daniel; Watkins, Charles; Matless, David (April 2016). "'An incredibly vile sport': Campaigns against Otter Hunting in Britain, 1900–39". Rural History. 27 (1): 79–101. doi:10.1017/S0956793315000175. ISSN 0956-7933.
- ^ Griffin, Emma. (2007). Blood Sport: Hunting in Britain Since 1066. Yale University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-300-11628-1
- ^ Tichelar, Michael. (2017). The History of Opposition to Blood Sports in Twentieth Century England. Routledge. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-138-22543-5
- ^ "League Against Cruel Sports". League Against Cruel Sports.
- ^ Turner, Ernest Sackville. (1964). All Heaven in a Rage. Michael Joseph. p. 283
- ^ Windeatt, Philip. (1982). The Hunt and the Anti-Hunt. Pluto Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0861043873
External links
- Two of our favorite 'Leagues'! – Art for the Benefit of Animals – from circa 1924
- Letter to Alfred Wallace, 25 January 1906
- Letter to Thomas Hardy, 24 August 1926
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