A Brief History of the
British Animal Freedom Movement
Animal freedom activism has existed as long as humans have oppressed our fellow animals. However, the current movement began in 1824, with the formation of the world’s first animal welfare charity, the Society for the Protection of Animals.
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In their first year, the SPCA (later the RSPCA) brought 64 people accused of violence towards animals before the courts.
In 1875, what could be considered the first grassroots animal rights movement in modern Britain emerged. Bands of Mercy were locally organised youth groups that pledged to ‘try to be kind to all living creatures and protect them from cruel usage.’ Due to this grassroots model, some Bands took nonviolent direct action, such as dismantling guns used for hunting. The Bands of Mercy would later become the RSPCA youth movement.
Also in 1875, suffragette Francis Power Cobbe formed the National Anti Vivisection Society (NAVS), the first group focused on an end to testing on animals. As the leadership of NAVS began to press for incremental change rather than an immediate end to animal testing, Cobbe left and founded the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (BUAV) in 1898.
In 1903, two suffragettes enrolled as medical students at University College, London, and watched in horror while a roomful of young men cheered as their professor slit open the throat of a little brown dog and attached electrodes to his vocal cords. This was not the first time this dog had been experimented on, but it would be the last. The surgeon deemed the experiment a failure and had the dog taken away and stabbed to death. The suffragettes took their findings to the National Anti-Vivisection Society (NAVS), who made it public. The University College sued NAVS for libel, but in doing so, outraged the wider public who were hearing the reality of animal testing for the first time. Battersea council approved a statue to be built in honour of the little brown dog, with the inscription, ‘Men and women of England, how long shall these things be?’ The medical students were incensed and stormed the park, attempting to destroy the statue. The action failed, as the working class community of Battersea fought back, bringing suffragettes, trade unions, and members of the public into days of pitched battles against the upper-class medical students. As a result of the affair, in 1919, the BUAV nearly pushed the Dogs (Protection) Bill through parliament, which would have ended testing on dogs forever.
In 1925, the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports (later League Against Cruel Sports), split from the RSPCA due to the Royal family’s connections to bloodsports, and a lack of focus on the issue. By 1959, League activists had begun leaving trails of scented chemicals across Exmoor to confuse hounds used to hunt stags. Favouring this tactic of direct intervention, in 1963, the Hunt Saboteurs Association (HSA) broke away from the League and created the first organisation focused solely on direct action for animal freedom. The HSA was also unique for being a fully volunteer-led initiative, allowing its members to organise their own local acts of hunt sabotage. Nine years later, in 1972, two hunt saboteurs felt that it might be better to stop the hunt from starting rather than disrupting them. Under the resurrected name of the Band of Mercy (later the Animal Liberation Front), Ronnie Lee and Cliff Goodman slashed the tyres of hunting vehicles and achieved their aim. Over the following two years, the Band of Mercy used property damage and animal liberation to end the seal cull in the Norfolk Wash, prevent a laboratory from being built, and close a breeder of animals for laboratories. Despite this success, the HSA stated, ‘We approve of their ideals but are opposed to their methods,’ and offered a £250 reward for information about the shadowy group.
In 1975, a reporter from People Magazine reported a story that shocked a nation: rows of dogs inside an ICI laboratory were being forced to inhale cigarette smoke before they were killed and dissected. Like the Brown Dog before them, the fate of these beagles horrified the nation, and this time, there were photos. As a million school children wrote to ICI, and 214 MPs signed an Early Day Motion to end the tests, two members of the public drove to the ICI laboratory, forced open a door, and liberated two of the dogs. Police later apprehended the rescuers, but the laboratory refused to cooperate, terrified of more bad publicity. The case collapsed, and with a swell of public support for the liberators, the government refused to give any further licences for tobacco tests on animals.
By the 1980s, several ‘Liberation Leagues’ had set up across the UK. Believing there was widespread public support for direct action on behalf of our fellow animals, they organised mass incursions at animal research facilities to rescue animals and gather evidence of violence and illegality. In 1980, the Northern Animal Liberation League (NALL) rescued four dogs from the University of Sheffield’s laboratories. It was clear that these had once been animal companions, and following an appeal, one of the dogs, a black labrador named Blackie, was reunited with her human family. The NALL and the ALF exposed a clandestine ring of puppy snatchers who stole hundreds of dogs from homes and the streets every month, eventually putting an end to this practice. In a show of unity between the grassroots and national organisations, between 1982 and 1984, the Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group operated out of the office of the BUAV, which regularly reported on the group’s clandestine actions in their own newsletter, the Liberator.
In 1988, the Animal Liberation Front attempted to liberate Rocky the dolphin from Marineland in Morecambe. Rocky had been captured in the wild seventeen years before and was the last surviving dolphin at Marineland. The attempt failed, and police apprehended the activists. However, their audacity inspired the public and a wide network of local grassroots groups to increase the pressure on the UK’s remaining dolphinariums. Bev Cowley, of the Morecambe Dolphin Campaign, enlisted the help of the Born Free Foundation, which initiated the Back to the Blue initiative. After twenty years in captivity, Rocky returned to the Caribbean, along with two dolphins from Brighton Sealife Center. The last dolphinarium in the UK closed shortly after, in 1993.
Despite the victories, this period was marked by tragedy as in 1991, eighteen-year-old Mike Hill, and in 1993, fifteen-year-old Tom Worby were both killed by hunt supporters while sabotaging fox hunts.
The network of community-organised local groups focusing on diverse issues built a solid base for the animal rights movement. As a result, the 1992 World Day for Animals in Laboratories march, organised by NAVS, attracted over 20,000 people. The network also responded to a huge increase in the live export of farmed animals for slaughter in continental Europe.
Grassroots activism, direct action from anonymous groups and individuals, and the well-funded and well-organised campaigning of the RSPCA and Compassion in World Farming rapidly applied immense pressure to the industry. In 1994, British Airways, Brittany Ferries, Stena Sealink, and P&O agreed to stop transporting live farmed animals. The industry moved to smaller ports and airports in 1995. Appalled by the sight of cattle trucks rolling through their small town, 1,500 residents in Brightlingsea blocked traffic to disrupt the industry. Their protest forced the export lorries to return to the farms they had come from. At another protest at Coventry airport, tragedy struck as Jill Phipps, a young mother and committed animal rights activist, was crushed to death beneath the wheels of a live export lorry being escorted to an aeroplane by a police escort who refused to stop. The practice was paused a year later as BSE swept the meat industry.
In 1997, the New Labour government swept to power. A £1 million donation from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) had secured a pre-election pamphlet called ‘New Labour, New Life For Animals’, which promised sweeping changes for animal welfare and rights issues, including a Royal Commission into the efficacy and ethics of animal testing, a vote to ban fox hunting, and a ban on fur farming. Initially, changes came fast, with bans on testing cosmetics on animals, and all testing on great apes came into force in 1998.
Following successful targeted pressure campaigns to close several breeders of animals for the vivisection industry, the grassroots turned their attention to Europe’s largest animal testing laboratory, Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS). With New Labour backtracking on its pledges to review animal testing due to industry pressure, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) formed in 1999, focused on removing the essential businesses and industries HLS relied upon to operate.
In 2000, following years of pressure from grassroots protest and direct actions, fur farmers agreed to a compensation deal from the government in return for a ban on the industry, pushed by organisations including Compassion in World Farming. The last fur farm closed in 2001.
In 2004, New Labour reluctantly enacted the Hunting Act, which they had promised to IFAW in 1997, under immense public pressure. However, the act's wording was vague enough for the fox-hunting community to ignore it. Hunting and hunt sabotage continued as they had for the previous forty years.
SHAC, meanwhile, was going from strength to strength. Due to the grassroots pressure on HLS’ customers and suppliers, the British government provided the laboratory with banking and insurance, which they hadn't done for any other company before or since. The beleaguered company had set up its own laundrette, crematorium, gas supply lines, catering department, and courier company. Scared by this campaigning model's success, in 2007, the government infiltrated the movement, creating evidence to convict and sentence organisers to up to 11 years in prison. As part of a broader, oppressive crackdown on anti-vivisection activism, the impact chilled the animal rights movement for several years.
As issues around climate change became pressing, new groups began to emerge, with a strong focus on animal agriculture. Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV), founded in 2016, used confrontational outreach tactics, believing the best approach was to shake the public towards a vegan diet. The same year, the US-based Animal Save Movement launched its first UK chapter in Manchester, which bore witness to animals entering slaughterhouses. Three years later, in 2019, Animal Rebellion (later Animal Rising) grew directly out of the Extinction Rebellion environmental campaigns, focusing on well-organised, large-scale disruptions and symbolic direct actions.
Following years of pressure from Freedom for Animals and Born Free, and decades of historic grassroots activism, the government banned circuses from using wild animals in 2019.
However, due to the repression faced by SHAC and others, the resurgent animal rights movement had lost its grassroots element. That was until 2021, when footage of dogs being loaded into crates at MBR Acres, a puppy factory that breeds dogs for the research industry, caused outrage. Camp Beagle was established as a permanent protest camp, inspiring a fresh wave of community-based activism.
In 2024, the thirty-year campaign to end live exports, which had started on the streets and resulted in the tragic death of Jill Phipps, was finally pushed through parliament by the RSPCA, Compassion in World Farming, and the grassroots Kent Action Against Live Exports. The Animal Welfare (Live Exports Act) ended the practice of shipping farmed animals abroad for fattening or slaughter.