Wikipedia

Sidney Trist

Sidney George Trist MJI[1] (1865 – 2 December 1918) was an English activist, journalist and editor. He advocated for animal welfare, anti-vivisection, anti-vaccination, and vegetarianism. He edited several animal welfare publications, including the Animal World and the Animals' Guardian, and served as secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society. Trist published numerous pamphlets and books advocating against vivisection and vaccination, notably circulating a letter from Mark Twain condemning vivisection. His works, such as Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates and The Under Dog, highlighted animal cruelty and emphasized the educational power of visuals. He was also a committee member of Battersea Dogs' Home, ensuring no dogs were sold to vivisectors.

Sidney Trist
MJI
Trist in 1911
Born
Sidney George Trist

1865
Newton Abbot, Devon, England
Died2 December 1918 (aged 53)
Wandsworth, London, England
Occupation(s)Activist, journalist, editor
Notable workThe Under Dog (1913)
Spouse
Florence Mogg
​
(m. 1893)​
Children4

Biography

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Back cover of the Animals' Guardian October 1914 issue

Sidney George Trist was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the third quarter of 1865.[2] He later moved to Wandsworth, London, where he married Florence Mogg in 1893;[3] they had four children.[4]

Trist was the editor of the Animal World,[5] and Animals' Friend.[6] He was also the secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (later the London and Provincial Anti-vivisection Society),[7] and the editor of its publication, the Animals' Guardian.[8] He was later elected to serve on the Battersea Dogs' Home committee, where he "ensured that its policy of never selling any dog to a vivisector was maintained".[7] Trist's advocacy for vegetarianism in the journals he edited resulted in his alienation by some anti-vivisectionists, who viewed his stance as too radical.[9]

In 1894, Trist published his first pamphlet, A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question, which advocated against vivisection.[10] This was followed by pamphlets critical of vaccination (focusing on the rabies vaccine particularly): Pasteurism Discredited,[11] and A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia,[12] as well as others on anti-vivisection: The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection,[13] and A Cloud of Witnesses.[14] Mark Twain wrote a letter to Trist in 1899, condemning vivisection; Trist widely circulated the letter in the press and had many copies printed as a pamphlet by the London Anti-Vivisection Society.[15]

In 1901, Trist published his first book, Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers.[16] In 1904, he published Dog Stories, which included the works of Émile Zola,[17] with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome.[18] Trist provided the preface to Albert Leffingwell's 1908 book The Vivisection Controversy.[19]

In 1913, Trist published an illustrated collection of essays, The Under Dog: A Series of Papers by Various Authors on the Wrongs Suffered by Animals at the Hands of Man;[6] Trist wrote that the essays "justify this effort to expose to the eyes of humanity the naked horrors which abound in their midst, and to which they are either blind or indifferent."[6]: 6  The book was reviewed in several newspapers.[20][21][22] J. Keri Cronin asserts that Trist recognised the significance of visuals in education and advocacy, emphasizing the effectiveness of teaching through visuals, rather than sound and, as a result, made illustrations a prominent feature in the publications he edited.[6]: 49  In the same year, he published Tell Me a Story, a selection of fiction on animals by various authors.[23]

Trist died on 2 December 1918,[24] at the age of 53, in Wandsworth.[25]

Legacy

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Hilda Kean's book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre is dedicated to Trist.[26]

Selected publications

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References

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  1. ^ "Foreigners Licensed to Vivisect in the United Kingdom". The Animal's Defender and Zoophilist. 13: 246. 1 January 1894.
  2. ^ "Births Sep 1865". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  3. ^ London Metropolitan Archives; London, England, UK; London Church of England Parish Registers; Reference Number: P95/TRI3/002.
  4. ^ The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911.
  5. ^ Gregory, James (2013) [2005]. "British Vegetarianism and the Raj". Retrieved 5 January 2024 – via Academia.edu.
  6. ^ a b c d Cronin, J. Keri (2018). Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-0-271-08161-8.
  7. ^ a b Kean, Hilda (1998). Animal Rights: Political and Social Change in Britain since 1800. London: Reaktion Books. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-86189-061-0.
  8. ^ Downs, James (11 February 2019). Ministers of 'the Black Art': the engagement of British clergy with photography, 1839-1914 (PhD in English thesis). University of Exeter. hdl:10871/35917. Retrieved 5 January 2024. p 155.
  9. ^ Gregory, James (2007). Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-century Britain. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 94–95. ISBN 978-0-85771-526-5.
  10. ^ Pittard, Christopher (2011). Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-4094-3289-0.
  11. ^ "Pasteurism discredited : What scientific and medical witnesses assert". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  12. ^ "A rational cure for hydrophobia : Buissonism versus Pasteurism : a contrast and a moral". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  13. ^ "The danger to hospital patients in the practice of vivisection". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  14. ^ Bryant, Sydney (16 June 1899). "Baron Brampton on Vivisection". The Church Weekly. London. p. 20.
  15. ^ Twain, Mark (2011). Fishkin, Shelley Fisher (ed.). Mark Twain's Book of Animals. University of California Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-520-27152-4.
  16. ^ "Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates A Book for Animal Lovers(autographed by A.W. Tozer) by Edt by Sidney G. Trist - 1901". Biblio.com. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  17. ^ "Dog stories". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  18. ^ "Books with contributions by Jerome". The Jerome K Jerome Society. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  19. ^ Leffingwell, Albert (1908). "Preface". The Vivisection Controversy: Essays and Criticisms. London: The London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society.
  20. ^ G., A. J. (10 July 1913). "'The Under Dog.' Edited by Sidney Trist". The World of Books. Evening Sentinel. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ^ "'The Under Dog'". The Tiverton Gazette. 22 July 1913. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "The Under Dog". Recent New Books. The Gazette. 7 August 1913. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  23. ^ "Tell Me A Story - edited by Sidney Trist - 1913". Barnebys (in Swedish). 2 May 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  24. ^ Ancestry.com. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
  25. ^ "Deaths Dec 1918". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  26. ^ Kean, Hilda (14 March 2017). The Great Cat & Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War II's Unknown Tragedy. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-31846-2.

Further reading

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