Library of Animal Rights History » Animal Welfare-Animal Rights Laws-Acts, Legislation Against Cruelty to Animals, Animal Protection Law

Animal Rights Law

Ancient Laws for the Protection of Animals, Early Anti-Cruelty Legislation Modern Legislative Beginnings of the Humane Movement Against
Cruelty to Animals, Continuing Animal Protection Law

[BCE-330] Law-Antiquity Ancient Animal Rights Law

[330-1485] Law-Middle Ages Early Church Fathers/Prohibitions

[330-1485] Law-Renaissance Early Anti-Cruelty Legislation

[1660-1785] Law-Enlightenment Pleas for Animal Protection Law

[1785-0837] Law-Romantic Age Modern Legislative Beginnings

[1837-1901] Law-Victorian Age Anti-Cruelty / Anti-Vivisection Law

[1901-1945] Law-Early 20th C. Continuing Animal Protection Law

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Explore the History of Animal Rights & the Humane Movement against Cruelty to Animals—Laws, Acts and other Legislation enacted for the protection of animals as well as literature remarking on the history of the humane movement highlight animal rights activists, animal welfare advocates, and authors accomplishments for animal rights, animal welfare and the protection of animals.

Legislation is the record, the register, of the moral sense of the community; it follows, not precedes, the development of that moral sense, but nevertheless in its turn reacts on it, strengthens it, and secures it against the danger of retrocession. It is well that society should proclaim, formally and decisively, its abhorrence of certain practices; and I do not think it can be doubted, by those who have studied the history of the movement, that…animals would be infinitely worse at this day but for…progressive and punitive legislation (Henry Salt, Animals' Rights [1892], "The Principle of Animals' Rights")

Thomas Wentworth's Act of 1635 in Ireland, as well as Nathaniel Ward's contribution to the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 establishes 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 Asoka, in the 3rd century BCE that we must honor 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.

Literature remarking on the
Legislative History of the Humane Movement

1796 | John Lawrence, "'Rights of Beasts'" and "'The Animal-Question'" Annotated Extracts in the Appendix of Rights of an Animal by Edward Byron Nicholson.

1875 | Dr. James A. Macaulay, "Means of Prevention, Legal and Educational" Chap. 3 in A Plea for Mercy to Animals

1879 | Edward Byron Nicholson, "Conscience and Animal-Rights," Chap. 3 in The Rights of an Animal: A New Essay in Ethics

1892 | Henry Salt, "The Principle of Animals' Rights" Chap. 1 in Animals' Rights

1924 | Edward G Fairholme and Wellesly Pain, A Century of Work for the Animals: The History of the R.S.P.C.A., 1824-1924 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1924).

1965 | E.S. Turner, All Heaven in a Rage (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965).

1968 | Emily Stewart Leavitt, "The Evolution of Anti-Cruelty Laws in the United States." Chap. 1 in Animals and Their Legal Rights: A Survey of American Laws from 1641 to 1968 (New York: Animal Welfare Institute, 1968).

1975 | Peter Singer, "Man's Dominion…A Short History of Specieism," Chap 5 in Animal Liberation, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1975).

1979 | Richard D. Ryder, "The Struggle Against Speciesism," Chap 1 in Animals' Rights—A Symposium, Edited by D. Paterson and Richard D. Ryder (London: Centaur Press Ltd, 1979).

2000 | Aaron Garrett, Introduction to Animal Rights and Souls in the Eighteenth Century (England: Thoemmes Press, 2000).