Henry B. Amos

Amos was born in Tyninghame, Scotland, on 24 May 1869.{{Cite ODNB|last=Baker|first=Anne Pimlott|title=Amos, Henry Brown (1869–1946), campaigner against field sports|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-53036|access-date=2020-07-01|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/53036|isbn=9780198614128}} He first became interested in vegetarianism when he was a teenager, in about 1886.{{Cite journal|date=December 1946|title=Henry Brown Amos (1869-1946)|url=https://www.ordergoldenage.co.uk/obituaries/henry-brown-amos/|journal=The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review}} He later worked as a draper and married Ruth Helen Bowker Sharp (1869–1905) on 7 February 1899; they had four children, two of whom died in infancy.

Amos was a member of the Humanitarian League and former member of the RSPCA.{{Cite book|last=May|first=Allyson N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qs3PFiDZSXoC|title=The Fox-Hunting Controversy, 1781–2004: Class and Cruelty|publisher=Ashgate Publishing|year=2013|isbn=978-1-4094-6069-5|location=Farnham|pages=73–74|language=en}} In the mid-1890s he was an organizer in London for the Vegetarian Federal Union. In 1895, he was Hon. Secretary of the Vegetarian Cycling & Athletic Club and was associated with Sidney H. Beard and the Order of the Golden Age (1901–1903).[https://www.henrysalt.co.uk/friends/henry-brown-amos/ "Henry Brown Amos"]. henrysalt.co.uk. He succeeded Albert Broadbent as Secretary of the Vegetarian Society (1913–1914). In 1915, he published a short pamphlet on cooking vegetarian meals.{{Cite journal|date=January 1915|title=Literary Notices|url=https://adventistdigitallibrary.org/adl-409993/good-health-february-1-1915|journal=Good Health|volume=13|issue=2|pages=31}}

Amos was an opponent of blood sports. His letters campaigning against rabbit coursing in Surrey led to its prohibition in 1924. He organized the Leeds Rodeo Protest Committee the same year. Amos co-founded the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (later the League Against Cruel Sports) in 1925 with Ernest Bell and George Greenwood as first president.{{cite news|url=https://www.findmypast.co.uk/image-viewer?issue=BL%2F0004647%2F19250730&page=3 |title=League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports|newspaper=Hampstead and St. John's Wood Advertiser|date=July 30, 1925|page=3 |quote=A new League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports has just been formed, with Sir Greenwood as President, Mr Ernest Bell hon. treasurer, and Mr. H. B. Amos, as secretary.}} {{subscription required}} The League aimed to abolish the hunting of deer, foxes, hares, otters, and the coursing of hares and rabbits.

Amos became highly critical of the RSPCA because, during this time, they were unwilling to take action against hunting.Griffin, Emma. (2007). Blood Sport: Hunting in Britain Since 1066. Yale University Press. p. 180. {{ISBN|978-0-300-11628-1}} His published criticism of the RSPCA caused an internal conflict and because of this Greenwood resigned from the League in 1927 and Bell resigned in 1931.{{Cite journal|last1=Allen|first1=Daniel|last2=Watkins|first2=Charles|last3=Matless|first3=David|date=April 2016|title='An incredibly vile sport': Campaigns against Otter Hunting in Britain, 1900–39|journal=Rural History|language=en|volume=27|issue=1|pages=79–101|doi=10.1017/S0956793315000175|issn=0956-7933|doi-access=free}}Tichelar, Michael. (2017). The History of Opposition to Blood Sports in Twentieth Century England. Routledge. p. 55. {{ISBN|978-1-138-22543-5}}[https://archive.today/20200701184802/https://aim25.com/cgi-bin/vcdf/detail?coll_id=7242&inst_id=73&nv1=search&nv2= "League Against Cruel Sports"]. League Against Cruel Sports. The League began producing a monthly journal Cruel Sports which Amos edited. According to E. S. Turner, the journal "criticised the RSPCA for its toleration of fox-hunting, and attacked the Church for sheltering behind the RSPCA."Turner, Ernest Sackville. (1964). All Heaven in a Rage. Michael Joseph. p. 283 In the January 1927 edition, Amos noted that "little has been done either by religion or education to stem the tide of cruelty involved in hunting."Windeatt, Philip. (1982). The Hunt and the Anti-Hunt. Pluto Press. p. 22. {{ISBN|978-0861043873}}

In 1935, Amos was jailed briefly for throwing a copy of Henry Stephens Salt's Creed of Kinship through a stained glass window at Exeter Cathedral during evensong, as a protest against the church's endorsement of hunting. Suffering for years from a bronchial illness, he was eventually forced to retire from his work with the League at the end of 1936.

Amos died in Hendon, north London, on 22 October 1946, at the age of 77.

• The Food Reformer's Year Book and Health Annual (editor for multiple years, 1909)
• Economical, Nourishing Dishes for Times of Stress and How to Cook Them (1915)
• Opinions in Favour of Vegetarianism by Leading Temperance Reformers (1919)

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.happycow.net/blog/art-for-the-benefit-of-animals/ Two of our favorite 'Leagues'! – Art for the Benefit of Animals – from circa 1924]
• [https://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/scientific-resources/collections/library-collections/wallace-letters-online/3240/3208/T/details.html Letter to Alfred Wallace, 25 January 1906]
• [http://hardycorrespondents.exeter.ac.uk/text.html?id=dhe-hl-h.749 Letter to Thomas Hardy, 24 August 1926]

{{Animal rights|state=collapsed|advocates}}

{{Vegetarianism}}

{{Vegetarian Society}}

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Category:1869 births

Category:1946 deaths

Category:Anti-hunting activists

Category:League Against Cruel Sports workers

Category:People associated with the Vegetarian Society

Category:People from East Lothian

Category:Scottish animal rights activists

Category:Scottish anti-vivisectionists

Category:Scottish drapers

Category:Scottish vegetarianism activists