Vegetarian Society

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The Vegetarian Society is a British registered charity established on 30 September 1847 with the aim of promoting understanding and respect for vegetarian lifestyles.

1 History
2 Current work
3 Notable members
4 Other societies
5 External links

[edit] History

The first recorded meeting of the Vegetarian Society was held at Northwood Villa, a vegetarian hospital at Ramsgate, Kent in 1847. Its first full public meeting was held in Manchester the following year. In 1848, the society published the first issue of its magazine 'The Vegetarian'.

The Society claims to be the oldest society promoting vegetarianism in the world, though there are number of religious organisations in the East some of them millennia old which also promote abstinence from meat and prohibition against harming any animal life. Before the Society was founded, vegetarians were known as "Pythagoreans". Although is it often claimed that the word "vegetarian" was coined on 30 September 1847 at the first meeting of The Vegetarian Society, the Oxford English Dictionary cites two earlier usages, in 1839 and 1842, though the OED asserts that the widespread use of the term is due to the founding of the Vegetarian Society.

[edit] Current work

The society's current work is primarily geared towards the provision of advice and education to individuals, educational establishments, and community groups.

The Vegetarian Society act as a pressure group with the goal of influencing food producers to remove non-vegetarian ingredients such as gelatine from their produce. This pressure is also exerted in the form of an approval stamp for those goods which are suitable for a vegetarian lifestyle and a list of products which are not appropriate for vegetarians.

[edit] Notable members

Notable members of the Vegetarian Society include Isaac Pitman, Mahatma Gandhi, George Bernard Shaw, Alanis Morissette and Linda McCartney.

[edit] Other societies

There are numerous other vegetarian societies in various parts of the world, notably the United States, Australia, and New Zealand though these societies are not directly linked to the Vegetarian Society.