ANIMAL WELFARE

 

See Also: ANIMALS; DOGS Dog Carts; HORSES; MEDICAL RESEARCH; MENU

 

Animal Disease

    See Also: DISEASES

   

Rinderprest

    In 1714 rinderpest reached Britain. King George I asked his physician Thomas Bates to address the matter. Three years earlier the physician Giovanni Lancisi (1654-1720) in the Papal States had concluded that the condition was infectious. He developed an approach of controlling movements of animal and people and slaughtering infected animals. The carrot of paying compensation rather than the stick of penalties. Bates had addressed the problem within six months.

    In 1746 there was a delay in applying measures to control an outbreak of rinderpest. The outbreak did not end until 1758.

 

The Four Stages of Cruelty

    William Hogarth was an artist whose most famous work consisted of several series of paintings that satirised particular aspects of 18^thC society. His output included: A Harlot's Progress (1732), The Rake's Progress (1735), Marriage a-la-mode (1743), and The Election (1753-4). He reached a mass audience through engravings that were made of the original works. In The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751), he criticised the mistreatment of animals.

    See Also: WILLIAM HOGARTH

    Location: 30 Leicester Square, WC2H 7JZ (purple, yellow)

 

The Metropolitan Drinking Fountains & Cattle Trough Association

    The Metropolitan Drinking Fountains & Cattle Trough Association was founded in 1859 by Samuel Gurney to furnish facilities that would provide an opportunity for livestock to drink water while they were being moved through the city.¹

    By the mid-1930s automobiles had become sufficiently common that the Association no longer felt the need to build any more troughs. The organisation metamorphosed into being The Drinking Fountain Association.

    See Also: THE GREAT RAILWAY CRASH OF 1866; PRISONS, DISAPPEARED Prison Reformers, Elizabeth Fry; ROADS New Road and City Road; WATER SUPPLY The Drinking Fountain Association

    Website: www.drinkingfountains.org

¹. Gurney was a member of the management team that took the banking firm Overend Gurney into its 1866 financial crash. However, his reputation survived intact and he went on to act as a director of other businesses.

 

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

    The Treatment of Cattle Act of 1822 was the first instance of animal welfare legislation. The measure's successful passage prompted the Rev Arthur Broome, the Vicar of Bromley-by-Bow, to convene a public meeting at Old Slaughter s Coffee House in order to found what became the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

    Bear-baiting, cock-fighting, and the beating of horses in the street were outlawed by the Cruelty To Animals Acts of 1835 and 1837. However, contemporaries noted that hunting in the countryside - an upper-class pursuit - was allowed to continue. In 1840 Queen Victoria granted the organisation the right to term itself Royal . (Europeans sometimes draw attention to the fact that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is not Royal. Indeed, it was not founded until 1884.)

    Location: Old Slaughter's Coffee House, 77-78 Cranbourn Street, WC2N 4AA. (Long gone.) (red, yellow)

    See Also: PUBS The Castle

    Website: www.rspca.org.uk

 

The Royal Veterinary College

    Charles Vial de Sainbel's presented a plan for a veterinary college to the Odiham Agricultural Society, the membership was composed of wealthy gentlemen. In developing the scheme, he was aided by Granville Penn, who was an official in the War Department.¹ The Veterinary College of London was founded in 1791 with de Sainbel as its first principal. During the institution's early years its activities were focused upon horses because of the ongoing war with France.

    In 1827 King George IV became the College's patron and the body's name was changed to the Royal Veterinary College. In 1842 the broadening of its activities was marked by the Royal Agricultural Society sponsoring the establishment at the College of a chair in cattle pathology, of which the holder was James Beart Simonds. In 1844 the institution was given a royal charter. In 1949 it became a School of the University of London. Like a number of the other constituent colleges, it is an older entity than the university itself.

    Location: 4 Royal College Street, Camden, NW1 0TU (orange, turquoise)

    See Also: HORSES The Blue Cross Hospital; UNIVERSITIES The University of London

    Website: www.rvc.ac.uk

¹. Granville Penn's branch of the Penn family enjoyed property and mining rights in Pennsylvania. These were held for the Crown in return for the annual delivery of two beaver skins to Windsor Castle.

 

Vivisection

    Queen Victoria was an animal-lover. She was wary of Joseph Lister because he had done a lot of vivisection. However, in 1871 Lister removed an enormous abscess that had developed on Queen Victoria's left armpit. That she did not developed septicemia subsequently helped validate his approach to surgery.

    In H.G. Wells's novel The Island of Dr Moreau (1896) Dr Moreau is an Englishman who has gone into exile because he has become highly controversial as a vivisectionist

    See Also: CHARLES DARWIN Dr Moreau's Island

David Backhouse 2022