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The history

The history of veganism, in its own words.

The word is from November 1944: Donald Watson called a meeting with five other non-dairy vegetarians, including Elsie Shrigley, and the group coined it in the first issue of The Vegan News. It took until 1949 for Leslie J Cross to point out that the young Vegan Society still had no definition of veganism and to propose the principle it runs on to this day, the emancipation of animals from exploitation by man. The definition in use now was settled by the winter of 1988. The idea is 2,500 years older than the word. Here is the whole arc, told the honest way: through the documents, the sermons, the manifestos, and the government records of the people who were actually there. 40 primary sources across six eras, each one verified verbatim and linked so you can check it yourself. The myths get corrected. The hard parts stay in.

How veganism started, in six dates

Every date below is taken from the record of the organisation it belongs to, linked so you can check it. Anything older than 1847 lives in the era pages, where each claim carries the primary document it comes from.

  1. 30 September 1847 The Vegetarian Society is founded at Northwood Villa in Ramsgate, after a July meeting of 130 people at Alcott House. Veganism begins as an argument inside this movement. Vegetarian Society history
  2. November 1944 Donald Watson calls a meeting with five other non-dairy vegetarians, including Elsie Shrigley. The Vegan Society is founded and the word vegan is printed for the first time in The Vegan News. Vegan Society history
  3. 1949 Leslie J Cross points out that the Society has no definition of veganism and proposes “the principle of the emancipation of animals from exploitation by man”, later clarified to cover food, commodities, work, hunting and vivisection. Vegan Society history
  4. August 1964 The Vegan Society is registered as a charity for the first time. It becomes a limited company in December 1979. Vegan Society history
  5. Winter 1988 The definition still in use is in place: a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of and cruelty to animals. Vegan Society definition
  6. 1 November 1994 The first World Vegan Day marks the Society’s fiftieth anniversary. The exact founding day in November 1944 was never recorded, so the date was chosen. Vegan Society, World Vegan Day
On this day On this day in vegan history One real thing that happened on today’s date, written up fresh every morning with the brief, every quote re-checked against its source. A calendar of the movement that grows one verified piece at a time. See the almanac

Browse all six eras

  1. to 1789 Pythagoras to Bentham The idea is far older than the word. For twenty-five centuries, in Greece, in India, in the Arab world, and in the European Enlightenment, people argued that eating animals was a moral choice and chose not to. None of them called it veganism. All of them were reaching for it. 6 sources, from “Pythagoras Refuses the Altar” to “Bentham Asks the Only Question That Matters”
  2. 1809-1943 1809-1943 Organized vegetarianism arrived with the industrial age: a church in Salford, a society in Ramsgate, an American branch in New York, a global union in Dresden. By the time Gandhi addressed the London Vegetarian Society, the movement had institutions, a press, and a moral argument waiting for one more word. 7 sources, from “A Sermon on the 'Vegetable Diet'” to “Gandhi's Moral Case”
  3. 1944-1959 1944-1959 In November 1944 a handful of people who thought dairy was still a half-measure split off, started a newsletter, and coined a word. Within seven years they had turned it from a diet into a principle: the end of animal exploitation, as far as is possible and practicable. 6 sources, from “The Word Is Coined” to “The Law Says Slaughter Must Be Humane”
  4. 1960-1993 1960-1993 The word had a home; now it needed a case. An American society tied it to ahimsa, Ruth Harrison exposed the factory farm, Peter Singer gave it a philosophy, and by 1988 the Vegan Society had settled the definition still quoted today. 7 sources, from “America's Vegan Society” to “The Definition Settles”
  5. 1994-2012 1994-2012 Veganism got a calendar day, a climate argument, and a foothold in the culture. A UN report reframed it as an environmental question, and the movement started to look less like a subculture and more like a direction of travel. 6 sources, from “World Vegan Day” to “The UN Counts the Cost”
  6. 2013-present 2013-now The newest chapter is being written in labs, boardrooms, and regulators' offices: a burger grown from cells, a challenge month that went global, dietitians signing off, and the first governments clearing cultivated meat for sale. This page keeps growing. The fights below, tracked day by day in our Storylines, become history here as they resolve. 8 sources, from “The First Cultured Burger” to “Cultivated Meat Goes on Sale in America”

The next chapter is being written now.

Every morning we read the movement and rate the evidence. When a fight resolves, it becomes history on these pages, the same day. That is why the daily brief reads the way it does. Get it free.

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