Month: October 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:31 — 31.6MB)

Season 2023 – Talk 20- A history of Animal Welfare Legislation in the UK

In ‘A history of Animal Welfare Legislation in the UK’ Richard Thomas tells us about the tortuous path culminating in the Hunting Act of 2004.

Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.

A long time coming:

The 1835 Act to abolish animal baiting also gives some protection to domestic and farm animals. The next successful Act, abolishing fox hunting, stag hunting and coursing is in 2004, a gap of 169 years.

Richard doesn’t go through all the twists and turns in the debate over those 169 years. He looks at some milestones, which gradually, shake the complacency of the Squirearchy.

Professor E A Freeman:

Perhaps the next important milestone is in 1869 when Professor Freeman publishes an article in the Edinburgh Quarterly. That’s already another 30 years!

He changes the nature of the debate. Freeman argues that hunting is both cruel and bad for hunters. He suggests the argument that hunting is a manly sport with the additional benefit of reducing vermin is no longer sustainable. Also he notes that the 1835 Act abolishes the sports of the poor, the working class.

He asks, ‘is there any difference in principle between fox hunting and bull baiting so that fox hunting can be right and bull baiting wrong?’ He answers ‘no’.

The real issue is the difference between the social class and the political influence of the two groups of supporters. At this time the poor, urban working class are entirely without political power. Freeman’s article is widely read and is quoted in every subsequent book about animal welfare. It marks the real beginning of the next phase of the debate.

Changing views in society:

Why do hunting and coursing come under the spotlight? Firstly, the gradual increase in the franchise in 1832, 1867 and other bills means an increasingly urban electorate. Whilst the working classes are not fully enfranchised until 1918, and women not until 1928, Parliament begins to reflect different views. There is a change from rural power to urban power.

Many liberals are sympathetic to the anti hunting movement, but only the Labour Party considers hunting something worth having a policy on.

The path to the 2004 Act:

In 1997 the Labour Party wins the election with a landslide majority. This leads to the 2004 Hunting Act .

Listen to Richard tell the full story .

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern  Group.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music,  Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher , Vurbl , You Tube and others.

AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use with this talk.

© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Group 2018 – 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:55 — 33.8MB)

Season 2023 – Talk 19- William Cobbett and Hunting

In ‘William Cobbett and Hunting’ Richard Thomas tells us about ‘field sports’ during William Cobbett’s lifetime.

Click a thumbnail below to view the image gallery that accompanies the talk.

William Cobbett:

A countryman learning, as a child and young man, all the skills one needs to be a successful farmer. He farms in Botley, Hampshire, lives to the age of 72 and dies on his farm near Woking.

In his life he does lots of other things. The best known journalist of his age; using his energy and influence to agitate for reform.

He joins the army. Goes into exile in the USA. Spends time in prison for seditious libel. He attacks virtually every politician of the time and publishes the Political Register each week for around 35 years, until he dies.

With his quill pen he writes 20 million words about things as varied as English grammar, history of the Protestant Reformation, the cottage economy and, most famously, his  Rural Rides which is still in print. The Penguin edition is available from Waterstones.

His enjoyment of hunting:

Richard ignores all his writing and political agitation and tells us about his interest in field sports, particularly fox and hare hunting which, in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries, are as natural as breathing to country people like Cobbett. Simply a part of daily life, a part of the rural culture everywhere in Britain.

In his autobiography Cobbett tells us that ‘there is a little hop garden near Moor Park in which I used to work from eight to ten years old, from which I have scores of times run in order to follow the hounds, leaving the hoe to do the best it could to destroy the weeds’.

The beginning of the animal welfare lobby:

In 1789 Jeremy Bentham writes ‘the question is not, can they reason, or can they talk, but can they suffer?’.  Whilst Cobbett enjoys hunting he knows, as a farmer, that a well treated and well fed cow gives more milk, and that a well treated horse is much pleasanter and much safer to ride.

In Cottage Economy, he emphasises the importance of looking after the animals on which the farmers depend. He says ‘it is good for children to learn that the care is all.’

In reality there could be little change whilst the major landowners have control over parliament as before the 1832 Reform Act the urban vote hardly matters.

The changes during the 19th and 20th Centuries that lead to the 2004 Hunting Act will be in the second part of Richard’s talk.

Listen to Richard tell the full story .

About this podcast:

This is an edited recording of a talk given to the Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern  Group.

This podcast is also available through Amazon Music,  Apple Podcasts,  Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify, Stitcher , Vurbl , You Tube and others.

AKM Music licenses Media Magazine for use with this talk.

© The MrT Podcast Studio and Farnham u3a World History: Ancient, Medieval and Modern Group 2018 – 2024