Henry Brown Amos (24 May 1869 – 22 October 1946) was a Scottish animal rights, vegetarian, humanitarian, anti-vivisection, and anti-hunting activist. He worked as a draper and held offices in several vegetarian and animal protection organisations. In 1925, he co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports.

Biography

Early life and family

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.[1]

On 7 February 1899, Amos married Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp (1869–1905). They had four children, two of whom died in infancy.[1]

Vegetarian and humanitarian work

Amos was a member of the Humanitarian League and a former member of the RSPCA.[3] In the mid-1890s, he was an organiser in London for the Vegetarian Federal Union.[1] In 1895, he was honorary secretary of the Vegetarian Cycling Club. He was also associated with Sidney H. Beard and the Order of the Golden Age from 1901 to 1903.[4] From 1913 to 1914, he succeeded Albert Broadbent as secretary of the Vegetarian Society.[4]

In 1915, Amos published Economical, Nourishing Dishes for Times of Stress and How to Cook Them, a short pamphlet on cooking vegetarian meals.[5]

Opposition to blood sports

Amos opposed blood sports. His letters campaigning against rabbit coursing in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924.[6] He organised the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee in the same year.[6]

In 1925, Amos co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, later the League Against Cruel Sports, with Ernest Bell and George Greenwood as its first president.[7] The League sought to end the hunting of deer, foxes, hares and otters, and the coursing of hares and rabbits.[3]

Amos criticised the RSPCA for declining to campaign against hunting.[3][8] His criticism caused disputes within the League; Greenwood resigned from the organisation in 1927, and Bell resigned in 1931.[6][9][10]

The League published 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 wrote that "little has been done either by religion or education to stem the tide of cruelty involved in hunting."[12]

In 1935, Amos was briefly imprisoned after throwing a copy of Henry Stephens Salt's Creed of Kinship through a stained glass window at Exeter Cathedral during evensong.[3] The protest was directed at the Church's support for hunting.[1]

Later life and death

Amos suffered for years from a bronchial illness. He retired from his work with the League at the end of 1936.[1]

Amos died in Hendon, north London, on 22 October 1946, aged 77.[1][2]

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

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 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, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 "Henry Brown Amos (1869–1946)". The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review. December 1946.
  3. 1 2 3 4 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. 1 2 "Henry Brown Amos". Henry S. Salt Society. Retrieved 13 May 2026.
  5. ↑ "Literary Notices". Good Health. 13 (2): 31. January 1915 – via Adventist Digital Library.
  6. 1 2 3 4 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. Retrieved 13 May 2026. 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.
  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. Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-138-22543-5.
  10. ↑ "League Against Cruel Sports". AIM25. Retrieved 13 May 2026.
  11. ↑ Turner, Ernest Sackville (1965). All Heaven in a Rage. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 283. Retrieved 13 May 2026 – via Internet Archive.
  12. ↑ Windeatt, Philip (1982). The Hunt and the Anti-Hunt. London: Pluto Press. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-86104-387-3.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_B._Amos