Henry S. Clubb

The Reverend Henry S. Clubb
Born	Henry Stephen Clubb (1827-06-21)21 June 1827 Colchester, England
Died	29 October 1921(1921-10-29) (aged 94) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Resting place	Oakwood Cemetery, Sharon, Pennsylvania, U.S. 40°01′23″N 75°06′03″W / 40.0231018°N 75.1007996°W / 40.0231018; -75.1007996
Occupations	Minister activist journalist author politician
Notable work	Thirty-nine Reasons Why I Am a Vegetarian
Spouse	Anne Barbara Henderson ​ ​ (m. 1855; died 1915)​
Children	3
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Henry Stephen Clubb (21 June 1827 – 29 October 1921) was an English-American Bible Christian minister, activist, journalist, author, Civil War veteran, and Michigan state senator. Born in Colchester, England, Clubb emigrated to the United States in 1852, where he became an advocate for various social justice causes, including temperance, abolitionism, and vegetarianism. Clubb also led the Bible Christian Church in Philadelphia and founded the Vegetarian Society of America, where he served as president. In 1903, he published his best known work, Thirty-nine Reasons Why I Am a Vegetarian.

Henry Stephen Clubb was born on 21 June 1827, in Colchester, England.^[1][2] He was the youngest of the nine children of Stephen and Elizabeth Clubb. His parents were first Unitarians, then became Swedenborgians. They were also vegetarians for a time and were members of the Vegetarian Society, as we as his brother Robert. Clubb's education, similar to that of many English boys of the time, was obtained from various sources, including attending evening school and studying Cobbett's Grammar and Pitman's phonography until the age of twelve.^[3]

At the age of 13, Clubb became a clerk at the Colchester post office.^[2] While working there, he heard about a London-based commercial traveler named W. Gibson Ward about a community called the Concordium and practicing an alternative lifestyle. This community, later called Alcott House was found in Ham Common, and influenced by transcendentalism.^[4] Clubb was inspired to become a vegetarian by Ward's regular visits to his father's home, where he listened to Ward's vivid descriptions of the horrors and cruelties of the slaughterhouse.^[3]

In 1842, at the age of 15, Clubb joined the Concordium. His journey there was via London, his first visit to the English capital and his first journey by train. After the dissolution of the community, he remained in London and became proficient in Pitman's shorthand, which had been advocated by progressives like the Concordists as a tool for the 'new age'. He initially worked as a shorthand teacher before taking on the role of secretary to James Simpson, the affluent leader of the early English vegetarian movement.^[4]

In 1850, he joined the Bible Christian Church, a sect founded by William Cowherd.^[4] He also became the local secretary of the Vegetarian Society in Salford^[4] and wrote for the Vegetarian Advocate newspaper.^[2] Around this time, Clubb and his family participated in a shorthand and vegetarian community in Stratford St Mary (c. 1848–1851), near Colchester.^[4]

By 1848, Henry Clubb had joined the Chartist movement. Clubb played a key role in uniting the Chartist localities and land plan branches in the region into what became known as the Essex and Suffolk Chartist Union. However, his involvement appears to have been brief. The following year, he was elected president of a dietetic class at the Library Institution in Salford and was earning a living through lecturing and writing on vegetarianism across the country.^[2]

In 1853, Clubb emigrated to the United States and initially found work as a journalist in New York, where he worked alongside Charles A. Dana for the New-York Tribune.^[5] As an abolitionist and pacifist, he lectured against slavery.^[6]

Between 1856 and 1857, he was involved with Charles DeWolfe and John McLaurin in building a utopian community known as Octagon City, Kansas. This project was originally designed as a vegetarian colony, but changed its focus to promoting a highly moral society with the octagon as its basic architectural structure, as propagated by Orson Fowler. The project failed due to mosquitoes, malnutrition, grain thefts and general exhaustion in the inhospitable terrain.^[4]

In the American Civil War, Clubb fought for the Union Army as a quartermaster. He took part in the Siege of Vicksburg, with his wife accompanying him. Clubb was hit by a bullet, but survived because the bullet was slowed down when it passed through his pocket which was filled with money and his naturalization papers, which were destroyed.^[5]

Living in Grand Haven, Michigan, he published the Grand Haven Herald newspaper, and served as state senator from the 29th District from 1873 to 1874.^[7]

Clubb founded the Vegetarian Society of America (VSA) in 1886 and became its first president. He published a cookbook for the organization and founded its magazine Food, Home and Garden.^[4] In 1893, Clubb was largely responsible for the success of the International Congress for Vegetarians at the Chicago World's Fair.^[3]

In 1900, the VSA merged with the Chicago Vegetarian Society.^[8] The VSA's Food, Home and Garden was renamed The Vegetarian and Our Fellow Creatures (1901–1903), The Vegetarian Magazine (1903–1925), The Vegetarian Magazine and Fruitarian (1925-1926) and The Vegetarian and Fruitarian (1926–1934).^[8]

Clubb briefly returned to England in 1901, visiting Salford. He published Thirty-nine Reasons Why I Am a Vegetarian in 1903, describing his reasoning for following a vegetarian lifestyle.^[9] In 1907, he decided to write a history of vegetarianism, to be published in the Chicago Vegetarian Magazine.^[4]

Clubb died in Philadelphia on 29 October 1921, at the age of 94, due to chronic gastritis and dementia.^[10] He was buried at Oakwood Cemetery, Sharon, Pennsylvania,^[10] with his wife and daughters.^[11]

Clubb married Anne Barbara Henderson on 15 November 1855, in Allegan, Michigan^[3] and they had three daughters.^[12] His wife died in 1915.^[3]

• The Maine Liquor Law: Its Origin, History, and Results, Including a Life of Hon. Neal Dow (1856)
• Thirty-nine Reasons Why I Am a Vegetarian (1903)
• Unpolished Rice, the Staple Food of the Orient (1905)

• Heiman, Kelly (11 June 2010). The Not-So Wild West: The Rise and Fall of Vegetarian Settlements in 19th century Kansas.
• Day, Meagan (26 December 2017). "The abolitionist, vegetarian, octagon-obsessed utopia that never was". Timeline.
• Kniggendorf, Anne (14 July 2019). "Meet the Well-meaning Pioneer Behind a Vegetarian 'fairy Land' in Kansas". KCUR-FM 89.3.

• Works by Henry S. Clubb at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• The Vegetarians - episode 13 of The Vegan Option podcast discusses the life of Henry S. Clubb
• Henry S. Clubb at Find a Grave