A report in the Lichfield Mercury in May 1822 describes what is believed to be the last incident of bull baiting in the town. It tells how a bull was brought to “the Greenhill Wake”, tied to a stake and attacked by a dog.
The terrified animal broke loose, escaped to nearby Rotten Row before being recaptured and finally – after killing two other dogs that were let loose upon it – “put out of its misery”.
Bull and bear-baiting and other blood sports had been rampantly popular in Elizabethan times, but by the late 17th and early 18th centuries there were signs that people were tiring of these primitive pastimes.
The famous diarist Samual Pepys, for example, wrote in 1666 that he had attended a bull-baiting event at the ‘Beare-Garden’, which he hadn’t done for many years. While not without enjoyment, “it is a very rude and nasty pleasure,” he admitted.
Another account by John Evelyn from 1670 tells how he was forced to accompany friends to a day of blood sports. “I’m most heartily weary of this rude and dirty pastime,” he laments, a trifle hypocritically.
How did the RSPCA start?
So when a group of men met in Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in St Martin’s Lane, near Leicester Square, on the evening of 16 June 1824 – 200 years ago – to discuss how to ensure that an animal welfare act passed two years earlier could be enforced, they were beginning a new chapter in humanity’s relationship with our animal brethren.
The group included the MPs William Wilberforce and Richard Martin, but the key figure that day was the Reverend Arthur Broome, who wrote the minutes for that famous meeting; he also later went to a debtor’s prison on account of the newly formed society being £300 in debt.
Nevertheless, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (it didn’t get its royal title until 1840) was born with a mission – to inspect streets and slaughterhouses to ensure the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act was enforced. This was, environment secretary Lord Benyon told peers while introducing a bill on animal sentience in 2021, a milestone: “The world’s first animal protection law”.
As Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the RSPCA in 2024, remarks, the society’s greatest success is the way it forced people to think differently about their relationship with animals. “Our history is changing attitudes, behaviours and laws towards and concerning animals,” he says.
How influential was the RSPCA in its early days?
The RSPCA’s first big success was in 1835, when Parliament passed the Cruelty to Animals Act, which – among other things – banned “the running, baiting, or fighting any Bull, Bear, Badger, Dog, or other Animal (whether of domestic of wild Nature or Kind)”, as well as cock-fighting. The penalty for being found guilty of such crimes went from 10 shillings to five pounds.
The RSPCA employed officers who could uncover legal transgressions – but it was often dangerous work. In 1838, two inspectors, the society’s secretary and two bodyguards were attacked by a group of seven men who had been planning a cockfight while they waited in The Swan Inn in Hanworth. One of the inspectors, James Piper, died from his injuries
In 1870, RSPCA secretary John Colam and a police superintendent stopped the last bullfight in England – and as far as we know, they survived.
The RSPCA during the 20th century
In the 20th century, the work of the RSPCA in caring for animals became increasingly important. In 1911, the Protection of Animals Act legislated further against animal cruelty and established the concept of “causing unnecessary suffering”, though wild animals remained excluded.
During the First World War, the society created a fund for sick and wounded horses, which allowed it to set up 13 animal hospitals, while in the Second World War, silver medals were awarded to RSPCA inspectors who risked life and limb rescuing animals from bomb sites.
“In total, an incredible 10,300 animals were saved”
In February 1953, RSPCA inspectors valiantly rescued livestock and pets from the fatal North Sea flood that hit England’s east coast. A report written by one inspector, who took part in the operation on badly affected Canvey Island, describes how they were equipped with “waders, food and an odd assortment of warm clothing” and set off in two boats with a number of locals to save anything they could find.
“That day we managed somehow – just how will never be known – to rescue 260 cattle, 10 horses, four pigs, and got them all to higher ground and made sure they had food and water,” he says. In total, an incredible 10,300 animals were saved, including some hibernating tortoises and a monkey.
Sherwood points out that the RSPCA continues to play a key role during times of crisis. “Our inspectors and animal welfare officers were still out on the road during Covid,” he says. “Our staff were caring for and rehoming cats and dogs in our animal centres.”
The RSPCA today
The beginning of the 21st century has seen a raft of legislation protecting animals, including a ban on wild animals in circuses, an updated Animal Welfare Act, extended prison sentences for animal cruelty that increases the maximum term from six months to five years and a law that formally recognises that animals, including crabs, lobsters and octopuses, are sentient beings.
Perhaps most notably, the RSPCA was heavily involved in the passage of the Hunting Act, which banned fox hunting and deer hunting, as well as hare coursing, in 2004. This has not been without controversy; some rural communities feel they have been marginalised by an aloof metropolitan elite.
However, Sherwood doesn’t believe there is any going back. “Public opinion is on the side of animal protection groups like us, that hunting foxes with dogs is not part of a modern society.” A recent victory is the ban on the export of live animals to be fattened up and slaughtered, but the bigger picture, Sherwood says, is that animal welfare issues increasingly transcend national boundaries.
Post-Brexit trade treaties, for example, can involve doing deals with countries whose animal welfare standards are lower than ours.
And though the RSPCA has made incredible progress over its 200-year history, it has to face technological or social changes that negatively impact animals.
- What to do if you find a lost dog, from the experts at the RSPCA
- What to do if you lose your dog: Key dog-finding advice from the experts at Battersea
- Why rescue dogs make great pets and how to choose the right one
- Why rescue cats make great pets and how to choose the right one for you, from the experts at the RSPCA
“If our founders were alive today, they wouldn’t recognise the world,” says Sherwood, “because factory farming didn’t exist in 1824, animals weren’t tested in laboratories in 1824 and we didn’t have flat-faced brachycephalic dogs that struggle to breathe in 1824.”
Still, we can confidently say no one is going to be holding a bullfight in the centre of Lichfield today or in future. That surely represents a step or two forward in the history of humanity
Fascinating RSPCA facts and figures
• The RSPCA received nearly one million calls to its emergency line in 2023, the equivalent of more than 2,500 every day.
• The RSPCA received reports of more than 14,000 abandoned dogs and 10,000 cats last year.
• The RSPCA operates 45 animal centres and employs 362 frontline inspectors and animal rescue officers.
• Since lockdown, rehoming rates of abandoned pets have plummeted by 30% – in 2019, the RSPCA rehomed nearly 40,000 animals, but only 27,500 in 2022.
• The most abandoned dog breed is the Staffordshire bull terrier (1,316) followed by the French bulldog and German shepherd.
• In the past decade, the RSPCA has found new homes for more than 400,000 pets and treated 615,000 animals at its hospitals.
• It has delivered 1.5 million pet meals through its Pet Food Bank Partnership.
• The RSPCA secured the convictions of 783 people in magistrates’ courts in 2022.
• The RSPCA has helped to get more than 200 pieces of legislation on to the statute books since it was founded.
Find out more about the RSPCA
