Blood sports in the UK: history is still in the making
Twenty years after the Hunting Act was introduced, and 100 years after its formation, the League Against Cruel Sports is still calling for an end to blood sports in the UK
History, as it is wont to do, is repeating itself.
In the small Surrey town of Morden in 1923, one man, Henry Amos, raised a protest against rabbit coursing.
He was successful, and his efforts in mobilising support and achieving a ban on rabbit coursing in the area encouraged him to explore opposition to other forms of cruel sports.
In 1924, along with Ernest Bell, he established the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports. Its inaugural meeting was held on 25 November 1924.
Garden meeting of the League on 22nd July 1927.
Many blood sports such as bull, bear and badger baiting, and cock fighting had long been banned, but these laws had only applied to domestic and captive animals.
The founding philosophy of the League, as documented by its chair, Sir George Greenwood, declared, “This inaugural public meeting registers its empathetic protest against all sports of hunting an animal to death for human pleasure and calls upon the government to introduce legislation to prohibit such sports”.
The League’s first parliamentary task was to persuade the Labour Party to oppose hunting. With Labour’s success at the 1929 general election in winning the largest number of seats for the first time, the League believed that a mere six years after it had been established anti-blood sports legislation could be on the wider political agenda in the 1930s.
However, that wasn’t to be the case. Successive attempts to bring in legislation failed, but the debates that took place in the House – plus a letter writing campaign by the League
and its supporters – ensured the public was now more aware
of the issue.
It was a longer road to get there than was anticipated, but 80 years on from that inaugural meeting, almost to the day, the Hunting Act 2004 gained Royal Assent.
It should have meant the League Against Cruel Sports, as the organisation – a charity – is now known, would end its hunting campaigns. Unfortunately, however, the spirit of the law has been, and continues to be challenged every day by those who would “hunt an animal to death for human pleasure”.
It doesn’t matter whether that animal is a fox, stag, deer or hare that’s being hunted by a mounted pack following hounds. It doesn’t matter whether it is a hare being coursed in a field followed by greyhounds or lurchers. It doesn’t matter whether it is by people going out at night with bright lights to dazzle their prey so they can shoot them or attack them with dogs. It doesn’t matter whether it is by someone sending a dog down a hole to battle with a fox or a badger.
All have been illegal for 20 years; all still continue.
The League of today is in the same position as Henry Amos and Ernest Bell’s League of 1924 – we call upon the government to introduce legislation to properly prohibit cruel sports.
To end blood sports in the UK once and for all.
It’s time for change. That time is now.
For more information visit www.league.org.uk/hunting
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