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Humanitarian League

The Humanitarian League was a British radical advocacy group formed by Henry S. Salt and others to promote the principle that it is wrong to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being. It was based in London and operated between 1891 and 1919.[1]

Humanitarian League
Formation1891 (1891)
FoundersHenry S. Salt, Edward Maitland, Ernest Bell, Howard Williams, Kenneth Romanes and Alice Lewis
DissolvedDecember 1919 (1919-12)
PurposePromotion of humanitarianism and animal rights
Location

Background

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Howard Williams, the author of The Ethics of Diet (1883), a history of vegetarianism, proposed in the book the concept of a "humane society with a wider scope than any previously existing body".[1] William's idea was developed by fellow writer and advocate, Henry S. Salt, in an 1889 article on humanitarianism.[2]

History

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The Humanitarian League was formed by Henry S. Salt, who was also the General Secretary and Editor. Other founding members included Edward Maitland, Ernest Bell (Chairman),[3] Howard Williams, Kenneth Romanes and Alice Lewis (Treasurer).[4] The League's inaugural meeting, in 1891, was held at the house of Alice Lewis, 14 Park Square, London,[4] who remained Treasurer for the League's existence.[1] Many of its founders were also members of the Shelley Society.[5]

Its aim was to enforce the principle that it is iniquitous to inflict avoidable suffering on any sentient being; their manifesto stated:[6]

The Humanitarian League has been established on the basis of an intelligible and consistent principle of humaneness – that it is iniquitous to inflict suffering, directly or indirectly, on any sentient being, except when self-defence or absolute necessity can justly be pleaded.

The League was a pioneering advocate for both animal and human rights, opposing corporal and capital punishment. Its goals included banning hunting as a sport and opposing vivisection, aligning it with the modern animal rights movement.[1] Many members were vegetarians.[5] The League also advanced human rights, playing a key role in the 1906 ban on flogging in the Royal Navy and campaigning to amend laws on imprisonment for debt and non-criminal offenses.[7] It also opposed compulsory vaccination.[8]

In 1895, the League opened an office in Great Queen Street, London, and launched its journal, Humanity (later The Humanitarian). That year saw the first National Humanitarian Conference with lectures on various perspectives. From 1897, the League's headquarters on Chancery Lane actively engaged with the press and organised public debates. They established departments focused on criminal law and prison reform, sports, humane diet and dress, and education reform. The League, committed to action, championed causes such as abolishing corporal punishment, blood sports, punishments for vagrancy, imprisonment for debt, "crimes of conscience", and other "barbarisms of the age".[9]

The League spread its ideas through two journals, Humanity (1895–1902), which was later renamed The Humanitarian (1902–1919) and a quarterly The Humane Review (1900–1910).[10]

During the First World War, the League's membership and output of publications were reduced in number.[1]

The League closed down in 1919,[11] following the death of Salt's wife.[12]

Legacy

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In 1924, former members of the League, Henry Brown Amos and Ernest Bell, established the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, now known as the League Against Cruel Sports.[9]

In 2013, The Humanitarian League was registered as an organisation in Hong Kong.[13] It operates alongside the Ernest Bell Library, republishing historical humanitarian pamphlets and books.[14]

Notable people associated with the League

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Notable members and supporters of the League included Annie Besant, W. H. Hudson, Sydney Olivier, George Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter,[4] Colonel William Lisle Blenkinsopp Coulson,[15] John Galsworthy,[16] Leo Tolstoy, J. Howard Moore, Ralph Waldo Trine, Ernest Howard Crosby, Alice Park, Clarence Darrow,[5] Keir Hardie, Thomas Hardy, Bertram Lloyd,[17] Edith Carrington,[18] Christabel Pankhurst, Tom Mann, Enid Stacy,[19] Carl Heath, Thomas Baty, George Ives, John Dillon, Lizzy Lind af Hageby, Stella Browne, Charlotte Despard, Isabella Ford, Anne Cobden-Sanderson, Michael Davitt, Alfred Russel Wallace, G. W. Foote, Conrad Noel, John Page Hopps, Sigmund Freud,[20] Josiah Oldfield,[21] Jessey Wade (Honorary Secretary of the Children’s Department; 1906–1919),[22] Henry John Williams (Humane Diet department)[23] and Henry B. Amos.[24]

Publications

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Books

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Pamphlets

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Weinbren, Dan (1994). "Against All Cruelty: The Humanitarian League, 1891-1919". History Workshop (38): 86–105. ISSN 0309-2984. JSTOR 4289320.
  2. ^ Salt, Henry S. (July 1889). "Humanitarianism: Its General Principles and Progress". Westminster Review. 132.
  3. ^ "Ernest Bell, President of the Vegetarian Society". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. October 1933.
  4. ^ a b c "Humanitarian League". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  5. ^ a b c Unti, Bernard (2014). "'Peace on earth among the orders of creation': Vegetarian Ethics in the United States Before World War I". In Helstosky, Carol (ed.). The Routledge History of Food. Abingdon: Routledge. pp. 186–188. doi:10.4324/9781315753454. ISBN 9781315753454.
  6. ^ Preece, Rod. (2011). Animal Sensibility and Inclusive Justice in the Age of Bernard Shaw. UBC Press. p. 153
  7. ^ Gold, Mark. (1998). Animal Century: A Celebration of Changing Attitudes to Animals. J. Carpenter. p. 11
  8. ^ "The Humanitarian League: What It Is, and What It Is Not". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  9. ^ a b "Humanist Heritage: The Humanitarian League (1891-1919)". Humanist Heritage. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
  10. ^ "Humanitarian League Publications". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  11. ^ Henry S. Salt (January 1920). "The Humanitarian League closes". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. 17 (1): 7. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
  12. ^ Preece, Rod (2011), Blazina, Christopher; Boyraz, Güler; Shen-Miller, David (eds.), "The History of Animal Ethics in Western Culture", The Psychology of the Human-Animal Bond, New York, NY: Springer New York, pp. 45–61, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9761-6_3, ISBN 978-1-4419-9760-9, retrieved 1 July 2024
  13. ^ "The Humanitarian League Limited". Hong Kong Business Directory. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  14. ^ "The Humanitarian League". HappyCow. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  15. ^ "Colonel Coulson". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 28 February 2020.
  16. ^ Wilson, David A. H. (2015). The Welfare of Performing Animals: A Historical Perspective. Springer. pp. 30-31. ISBN 978-3-662-45833-4
  17. ^ Hardy, Thomas; Purdy, Richard Little; Millgate, Michael. (1985). The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy: Vol. 5 1914 - 1919. Clarendon.
  18. ^ Edith Carrington (1894). Miss Edith Carrington: Portrait and Autobiography. The Animals' Friend (August), 1:24.
  19. ^ Kean, Hilda. (1998). Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. Reaktion Books
  20. ^ Freud, Sigmund (2010). The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by Strachey, James (New York Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group ed.). p. 189. ISBN 978-0-465-01977-9.
  21. ^ Weinbren, Dan (1994). "Against All Cruelty: The Humanitarian League, 1891-1919" (PDF). History Workshop (38): 86–105. ISSN 0309-2984. JSTOR 4289320.
  22. ^ "Meet Cats Protection founder Jessey Wade". Meow! Blog. 8 March 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
  23. ^ Grumett, David; Muers, Rachel, eds. (2011). Eating and Believing: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Vegetarianism and Theology. London: A&C Black. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-567-57736-8.
  24. ^ 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.
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