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Sidney Trist

Sidney Trist
MJI
Trist in 1911
Born
Sidney George Trist

1865
Newton Abbot, Devon, England
Died2 December 1918 (aged 53)
Wandsworth, London, England
Resting placeTorquay Cemetery, Devon, England
Occupations
  • Activist
  • journalist
  • editor
Notable workThe Under Dog (1913)
Spouse
Florence Mogg
​
(m. 1893)​
Children4
Signature

Sidney George Trist MJI[1] (1865 – 2 December 1918) was an English activist, journalist, and editor. He advocated for animal welfare and vegetarianism while opposing vivisection and vaccination. He edited several animal welfare publications, including the Animal World and the Animals' Guardian. Trist published numerous pamphlets and books advocating against vivisection and vaccination, notably circulating a letter from Mark Twain condemning vivisection. His works, including his best-known work The Under Dog (1913), highlighted cruelty to animals, with their illustrations emphasising the educational power of visuals. Trist also served as secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society and a committee member of Battersea Dogs' Home, ensuring no dogs were sold to vivisectors.

Biography

Early life and family

Sidney George Trist was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the third quarter of 1865.[2] His father was George Dyer Trist.[3] He later moved to Wandsworth, London, where he married Florence Mogg at All Saints Church, Wandsworth, in 1893;[4] they had three sons and a daughter together.[5][6]

Career

Back cover of the Animals' Guardian October 1914 issue

Trist was the editor of the Animal World[7] and Animals' Friend.[8]: 49  He was also the secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (later the London and Provincial Anti-vivisection Society),[9] and the editor of its publication, the Animals' Guardian.[10] 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".[9] 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.[11]

In 1894, Trist published his first pamphlet, A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question, which advocated against vivisection.[12] This was followed by pamphlets critical of vaccination, particularly the rabies vaccine, such as Pasteurism Discredited[13] and A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia.[14] He also authored works on anti-vivisection, including The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection[15] and A Cloud of Witnesses.[16] Mark Twain wrote a letter to Trist in 1899, condemning vivisection. Trist widely circulated the letter in the press and arranged for many copies to be printed as a pamphlet by the London Anti-Vivisection Society.[17]

In 1901, Trist published his first book, Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers.[18] In 1904, he published Dog Stories, which included the works of Émile Zola,[19] with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome.[20] Trist provided the preface to Albert Leffingwell's 1908 book, The Vivisection Controversy.[21]

In 1911, anti-vivisectionists were outraged when 16 bishops and other clergy joined the pro-vivisection Research Defence Society (RDS). Trist, condemned their involvement in a 5,000 word open letter, invoking imagery of Christ in a laboratory to highlight the moral contradiction. He warned that supporting vivisection betrayed Christian principles of compassion and risked alienating the Church from the public.[22]

In 1913, Trist published The Under Dog, an illustrated collection of essays that explored the injustices animals endure as a result of human actions.[8]: 49  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."[8]: 6  The book was reviewed in several newspapers.[23][24][25] J. Keri Cronin asserts that Trist recognised the significance of visuals in education and advocacy, emphasising the effectiveness of teaching through visuals, rather than sound and, as a result, made illustrations a prominent feature in the publications he edited.[8]: 49  In the same year, he published Tell Me a Story, a selection of fiction on animals by various authors.[26]

Death and legacy

Trist died on 2 December 1918, at the age of 53, in Wandsworth, London.[27][28] He was buried in Torquay Cemetery on 6 December.[29]

Hilda Kean's book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre is dedicated to Trist.[30]

Selected publications

References

  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. ^ "Sidney George Trist". British Newspaper Archive, Family Notices. FamilySearch. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  4. ^ "Sidney George Trist". London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1938. Ancestry.com. 2010. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  5. ^ "Births". Evening Standard. 11 January 1900. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  6. ^ "Sidney George Trist". The National Archives of the UK (TNA); Kew, Surrey, England; Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911. Ancestry.com. 2011. Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  7. ^ Gregory, James (2013) [2005]. "British Vegetarianism and the Raj". p. 8. Retrieved 5 January 2024 – via Academia.edu.
  8. ^ a b c d Cronin, J. Keri (2018). Art for Animals: Visual Culture and Animal Advocacy, 1870–1914. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-08009-3.
  9. ^ 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.
  10. ^ 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. p. 155. hdl:10871/35917. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ Pittard, Christopher (2011). Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-4094-3289-0.
  13. ^ "Pasteurism Discredited: What Scientific and Medical Witnesses Assert". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  14. ^ "A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia: Buissonism versus Pasteurism: A contrast and a Moral". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  15. ^ "The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  16. ^ Bryant, Sydney (16 June 1899). "Baron Brampton on Vivisection". The Church Weekly. London. p. 20 – via Newspapers.com (subscription required).
  17. ^ 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 – via Google Books.
  18. ^ "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. Archived from the original on 22 October 2021. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  19. ^ "Dog stories". WorldCat. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  20. ^ "Books with contributions by Jerome". The Jerome K Jerome Society. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  21. ^ Leffingwell, Albert (1908). "Preface". The Vivisection Controversy: Essays and Criticisms. The London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society – via Internet Archive.
  22. ^ Li, Chien-hui (2012). "Mobilizing Christianity in the Antivivisection Movement in Victorian Britain" (PDF). Journal of Animal Ethics. 2 (2): 141–161. doi:10.5406/janimalethics.2.2.0141. ISSN 2156-5414.
  23. ^ A. J. G. (10 July 1913). "'The Under Dog.' Edited by Sidney Trist". The World of Books. Evening Sentinel. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  24. ^ "'The Under Dog'". The Tiverton Gazette, East Devon Herald. 22 July 1913. pp. 3 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  25. ^ "The Under Dog". Recent New Books. The Gazette. 7 August 1913. pp. 7 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  26. ^ "Tell Me A Story - edited by Sidney Trist - 1913". Barnebys (in Swedish). 2 May 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  27. ^ "Sidney George Trist". England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995. Ancestry.com. 2010.
  28. ^ "Deaths Dec 1918". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  29. ^ "Sidney George Trist". England, Devon, Ford Park Cemetery and Torquay Cemetery Burials, 1848-1974. FamilySearch.
  30. ^ 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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