John Styles (17 March 1782 – 22 June 1849) was an English
Congregational minister and
animal rights writer.
Biography
Styles was educated at
Hoxton College
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, England. As a part of Shoreditch, it is often considered to be part of the East End – the historic core of wider East London. It was historically in the county of Middlesex until 1889. It l ...
.
[''The Characteristics and Dying Testimony of Peter: A Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Rev. John Styles, D. D. By John Sibree''](_blank)
''The Baptist Magazine''. Volume 41, 1849. p. 561 Before the age of 20 he entered the ministry at
Newport, Isle of Wight. During his career he was a pastor of independent churches at
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
,
Brixton
Brixton is a district in south London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Brixton experienced a rapid rise in population during the 19th ce ...
,
Clapham and
Foleshill.
He was awarded the degree of
Doctor of Divinity
A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity.
In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...
in 1844 by
Aberdeen University.
In 1837, the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) sponsored an essay competition, with a prize of £100, for the best essay encouraging greater kindness to animals (illustrating "the obligations of humanity as due to the brute creation").
[Preece, Rod. (2011). ''Animal Sensibility and Inclusive Justice in the Age of Bernard Shaw''. UBC Press. p. 98. ][Preece, John. (2017). ''John Styles''. In ''Awe for the Tiger, Love for the Lamb: A Chronicle of Sensibility to Animals''. Routledge. ][Feuerstein, Anna. (2019). ''The Political Lives of Victorian Animals: Liberal Creatures in Literature and Culture''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 63-64. ] Styles won the competition with his essay ''The Animal Creation: Its Claims on Our Humanity Stated and Enforced'', an early work on animal rights.
Styles based his arguments on Christian principles from the Bible, arguing that animals feel pain and suffer as humans do and that because God has given humans dominion over animals, they should treat them with benevolence and mercy.
Historian Anna Feuerstein has noted that "Styles compares humans to a shepherd, positioning animal welfare as pastoral power".
The book was positively reviewed in ''
The Herald of Peace'' and ''
The Monthly Review
''The Monthly Review'' (1749–1845) was an English periodical founded by Ralph Griffiths, a Nonconformist bookseller. The first periodical in England to offer reviews, it featured the novelist and poet Oliver Goldsmith as an early contributor ...
''.
Styles opposed all forms of
hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
and
vivisection.
He was not a vegetarian, but did criticize the luxuries of meat-eating. Historian
Rod Preece
Rodney John Charles Preece (August 15, 1939 – July 22, 2021) was a British-Canadian political philosopher and historian of animal rights and vegetarianism. He was professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier Univ ...
has suggested that Styles plagiarized from ''An Essay on Humanity to Animals'' (1798), by Thomas Young (c.1772–1835) of
Trinity College, Cambridge, and that the SPCA jury did not notice the borrowings.
Styles died at
Kennington
Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between the ...
on 22 June 1849.
Selected publications
''An Essay on the Character and Influence of the Stage on Morals and Happiness''(1807)
''An Essay on the Character and Influence of the Stage''(1807)
''Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. George Canning''(1828)
*''The Animal Creation: Its Claims on Our Humanity Stated and Enforced'' (1839)
See also
*
John Baxter
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Styles, John
1782 births
1849 deaths
Anti-vivisectionists
Doctors of Divinity
English animal rights scholars
English Congregationalist ministers