At the 2008 London Vegan Fair, a heated confrontation broke out at the stall of the Christian Vegetarian Association UK. A hostile visitor argued that the Bible and a plant-based lifestyle could never mix, demanding that the believers pack up and leave. It was a classic display of modern secular assumptions. Yet, the angry protester was missing a massive piece of history. Without a small, passionate group of nineteenth-century Christians, the global vegetarian movement as we know it might never have taken root.
The story of modern vegetarianism actually began in the smoky industrial landscape of Salford, England, during the dawn of the nineteenth century. Here, an eccentric minister with the memorable name of William Cowherd laid the groundwork for a dietary revolution. Once an Anglican clergyman, Cowherd eventually broke away to establish his own group, the Bible Christians, in 1800. He drew deep inspiration from the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Cowherd believed that giving up meat and alcohol was essential for maintaining physical purity and achieving a closer union with the divine.
For Cowherd, compassion was a fundamental Christian duty. He looked upon all of creation with deep reverence and even wrote hymns to spread his message. In one of his early hymnals, he wrote that to slay flesh was to smite at God. His chapel was a hub of radical empathy. The congregation prayed regularly for the poor, the marginalized, and the non-human creatures of the earth.
When Cowherd passed away in 1816, the torch passed to Joseph Brotherton. Brotherton was a formidable figure who later became Salford’s first Member of Parliament after the Reform Act of 1832. Under his leadership, the Bible Christians became a powerful force in local politics and social reform. Brotherton and his close-knit circle of family and friends dominated the civic life of the region. They fought for the education of the working classes, worked to improve industrial legislation, and championed peace and temperance.
In 1847, Brotherton chaired a historic meeting that officially established the Vegetarian Society. Most of the founding members were active participants in his church. Despite its deeply religious origins, this new group chose to remain secular. The founders believed that science and reason were the ultimate tools for uncovering spiritual truths, and they wanted their educational mission to reach everyone. The movement quickly attracted working-class artisans and tradesmen from northern industrial cities like Manchester and Leeds, who found that a meat-free diet was a remarkably economical way to stay healthy.
The movement did not stop at the British shoreline. Decades earlier, in 1817, a Bible Christian minister named William Metcalfe had sailed for America with a group of believers. He established a church in Philadelphia. In 1850, Metcalfe presided over the founding of the American Vegetarian Society, effectively turning a local English chapel’s lifestyle into a transatlantic phenomenon.
The general public did not embrace this new way of eating immediately. Many onlookers viewed the reformers as eccentric or even dangerous to public health. The famous satirical magazine Punch took aim at the movement in 1847, mocking it as a juvenile pretext for eating sweet pies and puddings. But the Bible Christians ignored the ridicule. They stayed true to their principles and kept the society alive.
Over the decades, the religious sect that started it all began to fade. The last Bible Christian minister connected to the society finished his work in 1905, and the final chapel service took place in Salford in 1932. But the seed they planted survived. Today, the Vegetarian Society continues to thrive from its headquarters in Cheshire, holding its place as the oldest vegetarian organization in the world. Modern plant-based advocates may not always recognize the vestments of the nineteenth-century pulpit, but their movement was born in the pews.
Bibliographic Information
- Title: A Short History of Christian Vegetarianism in the UK
- Subtitle: Working towards a violence-free world
- Author: Brenda Ryder
- Editors: John Ryder & Don Gwillim
- Publisher: Christian Vegetarian Association UK (CVAUK)
- Publisher Address: The Vicarage, Godshill, PO38 3HY
- Publication Year: June 2009
- Edition: First Edition (indicated by contextual dating: “at present (June 2009)…”)
- ISBN: Page reference / ISBN unavailable. (Published as an independent historical monograph)
- Historical Period Covered: Late 18th century (1787) to the early 21st century (2009)
- Main Subject Areas: Christian Vegetarianism, History of the Vegetarian Movement, Bible Christian Church (Cowherdites), Victorian Moral Reform, Gnostic Vegetarianism, Esoteric Christianity, Animal Theology, Ecofeminism and counterculture, Modern Veganism.
(Part I, Pages 2–3)