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Henry B. Amos
Born
Henry Brown Amos

(1869-05-24)24 May 1869
Tyninghame, Scotland
Died22 October 1946(1946-10-22) (aged 77)
Hendon, England
Occupation(s)Activist, draper
Spouse
Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp
​
​
(m. 1899; died 1905)​
Children4
Signature

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 1925.

Biography

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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 was an opponent of blood sports. His letters campaigning against rabbit coursing in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924.[6] He organized the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee the same year.[6] Amos co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (later the League Against Cruel Sports) in 1925 with Ernest Bell and George Greenwood as first president.[7] The League aimed to abolish the hunting of deer, foxes, hares, otters, and the coursing of hares and rabbits.[3]

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.[6][9][10] The League began producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports which Amos edited.[6] 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

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  • 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

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  1. ^ 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.)
  2. ^ a b "Henry Brown Amos (1869-1946)". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. December 1946.
  3. ^ a b c d 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.
  4. ^ a b "Henry Brown Amos". henrysalt.co.uk.
  5. ^ "Literary Notices". Good Health. 13 (2): 31. January 1915.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ "League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports". Hampstead and St. John's Wood Advertiser. 30 July 1925. p. 3. A new League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports has just been formed, with Sir Greenwood as President, Mr Ernest Bell hon. treasurer, and Mr. H. B. Amos, as secretary. (subscription required)
  8. ^ Griffin, Emma. (2007). Blood Sport: Hunting in Britain Since 1066. Yale University Press. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-300-11628-1
  9. ^ Tichelar, Michael. (2017). The History of Opposition to Blood Sports in Twentieth Century England. Routledge. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-138-22543-5
  10. ^ "League Against Cruel Sports". League Against Cruel Sports.
  11. ^ Turner, Ernest Sackville. (1964). All Heaven in a Rage. Michael Joseph. p. 283
  12. ^ Windeatt, Philip. (1982). The Hunt and the Anti-Hunt. Pluto Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0861043873
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