Sidney Trist

Sidney Trist
MJI[1]
Trist in 1908
Born
Sidney George Trist

1865 (1865)
Newton Abbot, Devon, England
Died (aged 53)
Wandsworth, London, England
Resting placeTorquay Cemetery
Occupations
  • Social reformer
  • journalist
  • editor
Years activec. 1894–1918
Notable workThe Under Dog (1913)
Spouse
Florence Mogg
​
(m. 1893)​
Children4
Signature

Sidney George Trist MJI (1865 – 2 December 1918) was an English social reformer, journalist, and editor. He advocated for animal welfare and vegetarianism, and opposed vivisection and vaccination. Trist edited several animal welfare periodicals, including The Animal World, The Animals' Friend, and The Animals' Guardian, served as secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society, and was a committee member of Battersea Dogs' Home. He wrote and edited a number of pamphlets and books, among them A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question (1894), Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates (1901), and the illustrated essay collection The Under Dog (1913). His use of visual imagery in advocacy was later noted by scholars, and in 2017 the historian Hilda Kean dedicated her book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre to him.

Biography

Early life

Sidney George Trist was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the third quarter of 1865.[2] His father was George Dyer Trist of Torquay.[3][4] He later moved to Wandsworth, London.[5]

Career

Early activism and pamphlets

Trist began his public career as an anti-vivisection campaigner and pamphleteer. In 1894, he published his first tract, A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question, which argued against vivisection.[6]

Trist went on to issue several pamphlets critical of vaccination, particularly the rabies vaccine, including Pasteurism Discredited and A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia.[7][8] Other works from this period included The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection and A Cloud of Witnesses.[9][10]

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.[11]

In 1903, Trist was a speaker at an anti-vivisection meeting with members from the Church Anti-Vivisection League.[12] He also spoke at the Fourth Triennial International Congress of the World League Against Vivisection held at Caxton Hall.[13]

Editorial and organisational roles

Trist was the editor of the animal welfare periodicals The Animal World and The Animals' Friend.[14][15]: 49  He was also the secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (later the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society) and editor of its publication, The Animals' Guardian.[16][17]

Trist was later elected to the committee of Battersea Dogs' Home, where he "ensured that its policy of never selling any dog to a vivisector was maintained".[16]

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.[18]

Books and collaborations

In 1901, Trist published his first book, Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers.[19] In 1904, he published Dog Stories, which included works by Émile Zola and an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome.[20][21] Trist also provided the preface to Albert Leffingwell's The Vivisection Controversy in 1908.[22] In 1911, when 16 bishops and other clergy joined the pro-vivisection Research Defence Society, Trist condemned their decision in a 5,000-word open letter, invoking imagery of Christ in a laboratory to criticise their stance.[23]

The Under Dog and final works

In 1913, Trist published The Under Dog, an illustrated collection of essays that explored the injustices animals endure as a result of human actions.[15]: 49  He 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".[15]: 6  The book was reviewed in several newspapers.[24][25][26] In the same year, he published Tell Me a Story, a collection of animal-themed fiction by various authors.[27]

Personal life and death

Trist married Florence Mogg on 28 October 1893 at Holy Trinity, Wandsworth.[4] They had four children: three sons and one daughter.[5][28]

Trist died on 2 December 1918 at a nursing home in Wandsworth, aged 53.[3][29] He was buried on 6 December at Torquay Cemetery, Devon.[30]

Legacy

J. Keri Cronin observes that Trist recognised the importance of visual education in advocacy, making illustrations a prominent feature in his publications.[15]: 49 

The historian Hilda Kean dedicated her 2017 book The Great Cat and Dog Massacre to Trist.[31]

Selected publications

Author

  • A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question (1894)
  • Pasteurism Discredited: What Scientific and Medical Witnesses Assert (1895)
  • A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia: Buissonism versus Pasteurism: A Contrast and a Moral (1896)
  • The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection (1896)
  • A Cloud of Witnesses (c. 1899)

Editor

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: Trist, Sidney George". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  3. ^ a b "Deaths". Torquay Directory and South Devon Journal. 4 December 1918. p. 5. Retrieved 21 February 2026 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  4. ^ a b "Marriages". The Western Times. 2 November 1893. p. 2. Retrieved 21 February 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ a b United Kingdom census (1911). "Sidney George Trist". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 20 February 2026.
  6. ^ Pittard, Christopher (2011). Purity and Contamination in Late Victorian Detective Fiction. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-4094-3289-0.
  7. ^ "Pasteurism Discredited: What Scientific and Medical Witnesses Assert". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  8. ^ "A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia: Buissonism versus Pasteurism: A contrast and a Moral". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  9. ^ "The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection". WorldCat. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  10. ^ Bryant, Sydney (16 June 1899). "Baron Brampton on Vivisection". The Church Weekly. London. p. 20 – via Newspapers.com (subscription required).
  11. ^ 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.
  12. ^ "The Church Anti-Vivisection League". Western Daily Press. 12 October 1903. p. 4.
  13. ^ "Pen Pictures of the International World League Congress Held in London". Springfield Reporter. 23 December 1910. p. 7.
  14. ^ Gregory, James (2013) [2005]. "British Vegetarianism and the Raj". p. 8. Retrieved 5 January 2024 – via Academia.edu.
  15. ^ 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.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ Downs, James (11 February 2019). Ministers of 'the Black Art': the engagement of British clergy with photography, 1839–1914 (PhD thesis). University of Exeter. p. 155. hdl:10871/35917. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  18. ^ Gregory, James (2007). Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-century Britain. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 94–95. ISBN 978-0-85771-526-5.
  19. ^ "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.
  20. ^ "Dog stories". WorldCat. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  21. ^ "Books with contributions by Jerome". The Jerome K Jerome Society. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  22. ^ Leffingwell, Albert (1908). "Preface". The Vivisection Controversy: Essays and Criticisms. London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society – via Internet Archive.
  23. ^ 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.
  24. ^ 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)
  25. ^ "'The Under Dog'". The Tiverton Gazette & East Devon Herald. 22 July 1913. p. 3 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  26. ^ "The Under Dog". Recent New Books. The Gazette. 7 August 1913. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com. (subscription required)
  27. ^ "Tell Me A Story - edited by Sidney Trist - 1913". Barnebys (in Swedish). 2 May 2013. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  28. ^ "Births". Evening Standard. 11 January 1900. p. 8. Retrieved 21 February 2026 – via Newspapers.com.
  29. ^ "Deaths Dec 1918: Trist, Sidney G." FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  30. ^ "Sidney George Trist". England, Devon, Ford Park Cemetery and Torquay Cemetery Burials, 1848-1974. FamilySearch.
  31. ^ 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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