Royal Society For The Prevention of Cruelty To Animals - History

History

See also: RSPCA Reform Group

The organisation was founded in 1824 (without the "royal" prefix) as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; it was established by a group of 22 reformers led by Richard Martin MP, William Wilberforce MP and the Reverend Arthur Broome in ‘Old Slaughter’s Coffee House’, St Martin's Lane, near the Strand. The foundation is marked by a plaque on the modern day building at 77-78 St Martin's Lane.

The society was the first animal welfare charity to be founded in the world. In 1824 it brought sixty three offenders before the courts. It was granted its royal status by Queen Victoria in 1840 to become the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as it is today. In the late 1830s the society began the tradition of the RSPCA inspector, which is the image best known of the organisation today.

The RSPCA lobbied Parliament throughout the nineteenth century, resulting in a number of new laws. The Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 amended Martin's Act and outlawed baiting. In 1876 the Cruelty to Animals Act was passed to control animal experimentation. In 1911 Parliament passed Sir George Greenwood's Animal Protection Act.

Since that time the RSPCA has continued to play an active role, both in the creation of animal welfare legislation and in its enforcement. An important recent new law has been the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

Read more about this topic:  Royal Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    “There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
    —Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    “... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
    —Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)

    “A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)