All Topics  
Vegetarian Society

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Vegetarian Society
 
 
  Topics Vegetarian Society Topic Home

The Vegetarian Society is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 registered charity
Charitable organization

The definition of charitable organization, and of charity, varies according to the country and in some instances the region of the country in which the charitable organization operates....
 established on 30 September 1847 with the aim of promoting understanding and respect for vegetarian
Vegetarianism

File:Foods.jpgVegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes meat , fish and poultry.There are several variants of the diet, some of which also exclude egg and/or some products produced from animal labour such as dairy products and honey....
 lifestyles.

first recorded meeting of the Vegetarian Society was held at Northwood Villa, a vegetarian hospital in Ramsgate
Ramsgate

Ramsgate is a seaside resort on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Port....
, Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
 in 1847. Its first full public meeting was held in Manchester
Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1853....
 the following year. In 1848, the society published the first issue of its magazine The Vegetarian.

The Society claims to be the oldest society in the world promoting vegetarianism
Vegetarianism

File:Foods.jpgVegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes meat , fish and poultry.There are several variants of the diet, some of which also exclude egg and/or some products produced from animal labour such as dairy products and honey....
, though there are number of older religious organisations in the East which also promote abstinence from meat and prohibit the harm of animals.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Vegetarian Society'
Start a new discussion about 'Vegetarian Society'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The Vegetarian Society is a British
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 registered charity
Charitable organization

The definition of charitable organization, and of charity, varies according to the country and in some instances the region of the country in which the charitable organization operates....
 established on 30 September 1847 with the aim of promoting understanding and respect for vegetarian
Vegetarianism

File:Foods.jpgVegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes meat , fish and poultry.There are several variants of the diet, some of which also exclude egg and/or some products produced from animal labour such as dairy products and honey....
 lifestyles.

History

The first recorded meeting of the Vegetarian Society was held at Northwood Villa, a vegetarian hospital in Ramsgate
Ramsgate

Ramsgate is a seaside resort on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century and is a member of the ancient confederation of Cinque Port....
, Kent
Kent

Kent is a Counties of England in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary....
 in 1847. Its first full public meeting was held in Manchester
Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1853....
 the following year. In 1848, the society published the first issue of its magazine The Vegetarian.

The Society claims to be the oldest society in the world promoting vegetarianism
Vegetarianism

File:Foods.jpgVegetarianism is the practice of a diet that excludes meat , fish and poultry.There are several variants of the diet, some of which also exclude egg and/or some products produced from animal labour such as dairy products and honey....
, though there are number of older religious organisations in the East which also promote abstinence from meat and prohibit the harm of animals. Before the Society was founded, vegetarians were known as "Pythagoreans
Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism is a term used for the esoteric and metaphysics beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were much influenced by mathematics and probably a very inspirational source for Plato and Platonism....
". Although is it often claimed that the word "vegetarian" was coined on 30 September 1847 at the first meeting of The Vegetarian Society, the Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language. Two fully-bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989; as of December 2008 the dictionary's current editors have completed a quarter of the third edition....
 cites two earlier usages, in 1839 and 1842, though the OED asserts that the widespread use of the term is due to the founding of the Vegetarian Society.

Current work

In the 20th century, the Society's work became geared primarily towards the provision of advice and education to individuals, educational establishments and community groups. The Vegetarian Society also acts as a pressure group with the aim of influencing food producers to remove non-vegetarian ingredients such as gelatine or cheese
Cheese

Cheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cattle, Water Buffalo, goats, or sheep's milk. It is produced by Coagulation of the milk protein casein....
 derived from animal rennet from their products. Manufacturers can apply for their products to be accredited with the Society's trademarked seedling symbol, which has strict criteria , including the use of free range eggs, which other V symbols may not include. They also campaign strongly against the labelling of products containing fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
 as vegetarian, (particularly by restaurants) and highlighting the hypocrisy of celebrities claiming to be vegetarian while eating fish. The Society also maintains a regularly-updated list of products which are not vegetarian.

Notable members

Notable members of the Vegetarian Society have included Isaac Pitman
Isaac Pitman

Sir Isaac Pitman , knighted in 1894, developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman Shorthand. He first proposed this in Stenographic Soundhand in 1837....
, Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha?resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence?which led India to Indian independence movement and inspired movements for civi...
, Jorja Fox
Jorja Fox

Jorja-An Fox , is an American actor. She is perhaps best known for her work as Sara Sidle in the hit CBS crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and for starring in two other successful television dramas, ER , and The West Wing....
, George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, was an Irish people playwright.Although Shaw's first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays....
, and Paul
Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney Member of the Order of the British Empire is a multiple Grammy Award-winning England singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record producer, film producer, Painting, and Animal rights....
, Linda
Linda McCartney

Linda Louise McCartney was an United Statesn photographer, musician and animal rights activist. Her mother and father were Lee Eastman and Louise Linder, heiress to the Lindner Department Store fortune....
 and Stella McCartney
Stella McCartney

Stella Nina McCartney is an England fashion designer. She is the daughter of former The Beatles Sir Paul McCartney and his first wife, deceased rock photographer and animal rights activist Linda McCartney....
.

Other societies

There are numerous other vegetarian societies in various parts of the world, notably in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, Australia
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
, and New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
, though these are not directly linked to the Vegetarian Society.

External links