At various times throughout the history of humankind, people have registered their opposition to the cruel way in which animals are oppressed, and many have turned to a vegetarian way of life. For both ethical and economic reasons, countless millions of people throughout the world live on a vegetarian diet.

Seneca, the greatest of the Stoics wrote: "To abstain from the flesh of animals is to foster and to encourage innocence." In a later statement he claimed: "I resolved to abstain from flesh meat, and at the end of a year the habit of abstinence was not only easy but delightful." Pythagoras enjoined the abstention from the flesh of animals and his followers formed a vegetarian community.

Other famous early vegetarians were Diogenes, Plato, Plotinus and Socrates. Vegetarianism was not uncommon among early Christians, and some monastic orders follow a vegetarian diet to this day. Famous writers such as Voltaire, Paley, Pope, Shelley, Bentham and Lamartine urged the desirability of a humane diet. Alexander Pope expressed the opinion that: "Nothing can be more shocking and horrid than one of our kitchens sprinkled with blood and abounding with the cries of expiring victims or with the limbs of dead animals scattered or hung up here and there."

Sir Richard Phillips, who died in 1842 and was High Sheriff of the county of Middlesex, was an ardent vegetarian from the age of twelve when he visited a slaughterhouse. The philanthropist and prison reformer, John Howard, was a practising vegetarian whose influence and concern affected many aspects of life in his own time and since. He claimed that his diet gave him immunity against "gaol fever" which was prevalent in the many filthy prisons he visited.

In October 1971 the new national Society launched a monthly newspaper called The Vegetarian which rapidly grew in popularity so that it achieved a circulation in the region of 50,000 copies each month. In 1977 the newspaper was replaced by an A4 format magazine. The New Vegetarian continued as such until it was renamed Alive in 1978 with a view to increasing the magazine's general appeal. However, this change of title was not popular with many vegetarians, and there was not the degree of support among non-vegetarians as had been hoped for. It ceased to be a monthly magazine and became bi-monthly, and in 1979 the Society's AGM decided that it wished the magazine to revert to its former title; so it once again became The Vegetarian in late 1980, becoming monthly in 1992 and after the advent of three rival magazines on the bookstalls reverting to a quarterly members only magazine in the spring of 1993 known as VQ, becoming The Vegetarian again in 1994.

In the nineteenth century other famous vegetarians were Mr and Mrs Bramwell Booth and Mr Frank Smith of the Salvation Army, Dr Anna Kingsford, Mrs Annie Besant, Lady Florence Dixy, George Bernard Shaw and Count Lyof N Tolstoi. Count Tolstoi, the eminent Russian novelist wrote: "The consumption of animal food is plainly immoral because it demands an act which does violence to our moral sentiments."

In 1985 the Italian Vegetarian Society put on a very successful European Vegetarian Congress and from it developed the European Vegetarian Union. Since then, a European Congress has been held at Ostend, Belgium in 1987, Strasbourg, France in 1989 and Chester, England in 1991.

Both the Vegetarian Society and the London Vegetarian Society flourished as national societies during this century. However, many people regretted that we did not have a single unified national society. Mr Montague Haines, a keen advocate of unification, led the move towards a single national vegetarian society. Finally, on 1 October 1969, the two societies amalgamated and the assets of the societies were taken over by the new society, The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom Limited. The Society has a property in Altrincham, Cheshire, and the work of the Society and its influence continue to grow.

The growth of the vegetarian movement has led to the development of other organisations which, although not part of the Society, are nevertheless directly associated with our work. The Vegan Society, with its aim of excluding all animal products from the diet, goes further than the Vegetarian Society, which accepts the use of eggs and dairy produce. Elderly vegetarians are catered for by the homes established in various parts of the country and run by Homes for Elderly Vegetarians and by the home in Edinburgh run by the Abbeyfield Society. Homes for Elderly Vegetarians became the Vegetarian Housing Association in 1990*.

The Vegetarian Home for Children in Jersey cared for children in need, and the Vegetarian Children's Charity, which developed from a former Home in Rainhill, Liverpool, administered funds to help needy vegetarian children. Unfortunately, the Jersey Children's Home had to be wound up in the late 1980s. The assets were combined with the Vegetarian Children's Charity in 1986 to form a new charity, the Vegetarian Charity which aims to help young vegetarians up to the age of 25.

Research into the vegetarian diet was undertaken by the Vegetarian Nutritional Research centre, based at Watford, under the direction of Dr Frank Wokes. More recently, since the passing of Dr Wokes, research activity has been under the guidance of the Research Section of the Vegetarian Society, which has now been fully incorporated into The Vegetarian Society. It sponsors research in hospitals, universities and other institutions of higher education into various aspects of the vegetarian diet and way of life. Its work has been greatly encouraged by the growing evidence of the health benefits of a vegetarian diet.

Maxwell Lee