Animal Rights History: Animal Welfare-Animal Rights Activists • Quotes • Historical Literature Library-Archive • Law Against Cruelty to Animals

Timeline: Antiquity » Medieval » Renaissance » Age of Enlightenment: Restoration » Augustan » Sensibility » Romantic Age » Victorian Age » Early 20thc.

"A wonderful resource for all of us interested in learning more about those who have spoken for the voiceless in the past."

Tom Regan, author of The Case for Animal Rights

Animal Rights History is recognized by the
Institute of Historical Research, University of London
in History in Focus, an online guide to Historical Resources

Animal Rights History Timeline

Activists - Quotes - Primary Source Historical Literature Library-Archive; Law Against Cruelty to Animals

Antiquity [BCE-476]

Mythical-Divine Origin; Remote-Classical Antiquity;
Early Church Fathers; Ancient Animal Rights Law

Medieval-Dark Ages [476-1485]

Middle Ages; Old-Middle English Literary Period

Renaissance [1485-1660]

English Renaissance; Reformation;
Early Anti-Cruelty Legislation

Age of Enlightenment [1660-1785]

Enlightenment: Restoration, Augustan Literary Period-Age of Pope;
Age of Sensibility-Age of Johnson; Early Pleas for Legislation

Romantic Age [1785-1837]

Romantic Age, Modern Legislative Beginnings

Victorian Age [1837-1901]

Victorian Age, Anti-Cruelty/Anti-Vivisection Legislation

Early 20th Century [1901-1945]

Early 20th Century: Edwardian Age, Modernism,
Continuing Animal Protection Legislation

Animal Welfare-Animal Rights Law; Animal Protection Laws

Thomas Wentworth's Act of 1635 in Ireland, as well as Nathaniel Ward's contribution to the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 establishes American and English law against cruelty to animals almost 200 years prior to the passage of Richard Martin's Act of 1822, a Bill to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle. Since these contributions were largely unknown until the late 20th century, the modern era of anti-cruelty legislation is usually traced back to the precedence set by "Martin's Act" and the amendments and legislative enactments against cruelty to animals that followed. However, it is King Ashoka, in the 3rd century BCE that we must honour as being the first to decree law not only for the protection of animals, creating the first list of "protected species but, progressive even by today's standards, proclaiming the slaughter of animals as food or for sacrifice unlawful."

Animal Rights Quotes

References to the Rights of Animals in Historical Literature

"Whereby [men] pretend a right to invade and violate [animals'] natural rights" (Thomas Tryon, 1684), and "with no kind advocate to plead in behalf of their invaded rights" (Clergyman, 1824), references to the rights of animals in historical literature against cruelty to animals "pleading the rights of the animal creation"(Legh Richmond, 1801) and "acknowledg[ing] that there are the RIGHTS of a BEAST, as well as the RIGHTS of a MAN" (Herman Daggett, 1791) helped form "the foundation of the Rights of Animals" (Thomas Young, 1798).

Animal Rights Poetry-Plays

"Poets, the Unacknowledged Legislators of the World," Percy Bysshe Shelley - Poets-Playwrights Humane Sentiments against Cruelty to Animals; Kindness to Animals in Poetry and Plays

Anti-Vivisection Quotes

Quotes from Activists Against Vivisection, Experiments on Animals, Animal Experimentation, Animal Tests, Testing & Research on Animals.

Plotinus in the 3rd century, refused medical treatments derived from animals. During the Renaissance, William Shakespeare spoke out against vivisection in his plays while Henry More began a Latin correspondence with Descartes describing vivisection as "murderous and barbarous." And although in the Age of Enlightenment, individuals such as Joseph Addison, Samuel Johnson, Voltaire, Thomas Percival, William Trinder as well as Lord Byron, Elizabeth "Bessy" Kent, William Hamilton Drummond, James Lawson Drummond Arthur Schopenhauer during the Romantic Age also spoke out against the cruelties, it is the Victorian Age that encompasses the beginnings of the anti-vivisection movement.

Vegetarianism

Pre-socratic philosopher Pythagoras advocated a natural diet; entire essays against flesh-eating can be found as far back as the first century; and later authors continued to advocate the Pythagorean diet of fruits and vegetables. Pleas from vegetarians, remarks of individuals whose sentiments suggest they might be vegetarians—although history offers no proof—and non-vegetarians remarks against the cruelty of slaughter and the eating of flesh document the history of vegetarianism.