Henry B. Amos | |
---|---|
Born | Henry Brown Amos 24 May 1869
Tyninghame, Scotland |
Died | 22 October 1946
Hendon, England | (aged 77)
Occupation(s) | Activist, draper |
Spouse |
Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp
(
m. 1899; died 1905) |
Children | 4 |
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 1924.
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 co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (later the League Against Cruel Sports) in 1924 with Ernest Bell and George Greenwood. [3] [6] The league aimed to abolish the hunting of deer, foxes, hares, otters, and the coursing of hares and rabbits. [3] Amos' letters campaigning against rabbit coursing in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924. [7] He organized the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee the same year. [7]
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. [7] [9] [10] The League began producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports which Amos edited. [7] 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]