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Joseph Knight (vegetarian)

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Joseph Knight
Knight, c. 1893
Born1854 (1854)
Spitalfields, Middlesex, England
DiedJanuary 1928 (aged 74)
Hereford, England
Occupations
  • Activist
  • writer
  • lecturer
Known forAdvocacy for temperance and vegetarianism
Spouse
Mary Ann Cooper
​
​
(m. 1874; died 1915)​

Joseph Knight (1854 – January 1928) was an English activist, writer, and lecturer. He played a prominent role in the late 19th and early 20th-century vegetarian and temperance movements in the United Kingdom. He served as secretary of the Vegetarian Society from 1885 to 1895 and founded the Scottish Vegetarian Society in 1883. A prolific pamphleteer and public speaker, Knight advocated a plant-based diet on ethical, health, and economic grounds. He also edited The Daisy Basket, the first British vegetarian magazine for children, and contributed widely to vegetarian and reformist periodicals.

Biography

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Early life

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Knight was born around 1854 in Spitalfields, Middlesex, the son of William and Eliza Knight.[1] He was a member of the Band of Hope from the age of six.[2]

Activism

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As an adult, Knight became a passionate and well-known promoter of temperance and vegetarianism.[2] He defined vegetarianism as the practice of living on products of the vegetable kingdom with or without the addition of dairy products and eggs to the exclusion of fish, fowl and red meat. He said that the consumption of anything belonging to the animal kingdom which was not possessed of life was consistent with vegetarianism. He argued against the cruelty of the slaughter of animals for food and stated that a vegetarian diet was more economical and healthy than a diet that contained meat.[3]

Knight joined the Vegetarian Society in 1881 and held various roles within the organisation.[4] In 1885, he became its secretary,[4] a position he held until 1895.[5] Knight's efforts led to the establishment of the Scottish Vegetarian Society in Glasgow in 1883,[6] where he served as vice-president.[7]

Founded in 1883, the Daisy Society was Britain's first children’s vegetarian group. In 1893, Beatrice Lindsay, editor of The Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger launched The Daisy Basket, the first vegetarian magazine for children.[2] Under the pseudonym "Uncle John", Knight edited the magazine from 1893 to 1894.[8] It featured a diverse range of content, including book reviews, letters, short fiction, and poetry.[9]: 227 

Knight authored numerous pamphlets and articles on vegetarianism.[10][11][12] Additionally, he delivered lectures promoting the cause.[13][14][15] In 1889, the Leicester Vegetarian Society was re-established following a lecture by Knight.[9]: 183  The same year, he was a speaker at a popular Vegetarian Society conference in Sheffield. Attendees included William E. A. Axon, James Clark, Peter Foxcroft, R. S. Wilson and many others. His speech was on "The Biblical Aspect of Vegetarianism" which argued the Bible was generally favourable to the abstinence of animal flesh.[16]

Personal life and death

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Knight preferred to eat raw vegetables and thistles.[17] He lived in Manchester and later worked as a journalist in Hereford.[7][18]

Knight married Mary Ann Cooper (d. 1915) in 1874. She lectured on vegetarianism and wrote on the subject under the name Minnie Knight.[4]

Knight died in January 1928 at the age of 74 at Hereford General Hospital due to complications from a fractured thigh, which he sustained in a fall on the snow in the previous December.[18][19]

Selected publications

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  • Cheap and Nutritious Food (Manchester: Vegetarian Society, 1885; OCLC 841494663)
  • Vegetarianism in Practice (first published in 1889 in Manchester Vegetarian Lectures; later published as a pamphlet)[10]
  • (ed.) Vegetarianism with Special Reference to its connection with Temperance in Drinking (Melbourne; Manchester: George Robertson; Vegetarian Society, 1889)[20]
  • Vegetarianism in Relation to Health (Manchester: Heywood, 1889)[21]
  • Vegetarianism: What it is, etc. (London: Richard J. James, 1903; OCLC 1063856574)
  • A Few Thought Rays Captured While Looking Towards Truth (1903; OCLC 314887148)

References

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  1. ^ "Joseph Knight". 1861 England Census. Ancestry.com. 2005. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Kubisz, Marzena (March 2023). "The Daisy Basket and the Rise of the Young Vegetarian Subject". Victorian Periodicals Review. 56 (1): 67–87. doi:10.1353/vpr.2023.a905140. ISSN 1712-526X.
  3. ^ "Vegetarian Lecture at Crewe". Chester Chronicle. 27 January 1894. p. 7 – via Findmypast.
  4. ^ a b c Gregory, James Richard Thomas Elliott (2002). "Biographical Index of British Vegetarians and Food reformers of the Victorian Era". The Vegetarian Movement in Britain c.1840–1901: A Study of Its Development, Personnel and Wider Connections (PDF). Vol. 2. University of Southampton. p. 69.
  5. ^ Forward, Charles Walter (1898). Fifty Years of Food Reform: A History of the Vegetarian Movement in England. London, Manchester: The Ideal Publishing Union, The Vegetarian Society. p. 163.
  6. ^ Gregory, James (29 June 2007). Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-century Britain. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-85771-526-5.
  7. ^ a b "History of the Scottish Vegetarian Society". International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved 20 January 2025.
  8. ^ Gregory, James Richard Thomas Elliott (2002). "Listing of vegetarian journals.". The Vegetarian Movement in Britain c.1840–1901: A Study of Its Development, Personnel and Wider Connections (PDF). Vol. 2. University of Southampton. p. 297.
  9. ^ a b Gregory, James Richard Thomas Elliott (2002). The Vegetarian Movement in Britain c.1840–1901: A Study of Its Development, Personnel and Wider Connections (PDF). Vol. 1. University of Southampton.
  10. ^ a b Axon, William Edward Armytage (1891). "List of Publications and Books Sold by the Vegetarian Society". Shelley's Vegetarianism. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Knight, Joseph (28 January 1888). "Vegetarian Dinners for School Children". British Medical Journal. 1 (1413): 214. PMC 2197346.
  12. ^ "Vegetarianism". The Dental Headlight: A Quarterly Record of Dental Science. Vol. 10–12. 1889. pp. 75–76.
  13. ^ "Vegetarian Lecture at the Y.M.C.A.". The Bolton News. 26 February 1886. p. 2 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Fritchley". Evening Telegraph. 29 March 1888. p. 4. Retrieved 21 January 2025 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ "A Vegetarian Lecture". Birmingham Evening Mail. 11 February 1892. p. 1. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
  16. ^ "Vegetarian Meetings in Sheffield". The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent. 15 May 1889. p. 6 – via Findmypast.
  17. ^ "Cupid in the Kitchen". Truth. 28: 17. 1890.
  18. ^ a b "Hereford Journalist's Fatal Fall". Western Mail. 26 January 1928. p. 8 – via Findmypast.
  19. ^ "Obituary". The Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News. 28 January 1928. p. 5. Retrieved 13 February 2025 – via Findmypast.
  20. ^ "Early Australian Vegetarian Societies". International Vegetarian Union. Retrieved 21 January 2025.
  21. ^ Richardson, Benjamin Ward (1890). The Asclepiad. Vol. 7. Longmans, Green, and Company.
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