On this day in vegan history · July 26, 1856
George Bernard Shaw Is Born
The playwright who made vegetarianism part of his public legend started, by his own account, to save money.
The facts
- Born
- July 26, 1856, Dublin, Ireland
- Turned vegetarian
- 1881, first for economy, then on principle
- Known for
- Playwright and critic; Nobel Prize in Literature, 1925
George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin on July 26, 1856. He became one of the most quoted writers in the English language and a vegetarian for the last sixty-nine years of his life. The reason he gave was refreshingly unheroic. He stopped eating meat in 1881 partly for economy, cheap food for a struggling young writer, and only came to hold it as a matter of principle over time. The beard and the diet became fixed in the public image of Shaw, so much so that when doctors later treated him with injections derived from animal liver, militant vegetarians rounded on him for the lapse.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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In 1881, for the sake of economy, and increasingly as a matter of principle, he became a vegetarian.
Wikipedia, entry on George Bernard Shaw
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Shaw gave vegetarianism a witty, high-profile public face for most of a century, at a time when it was easy to dismiss as a fad. His candor about starting for cheapness, not sainthood, still makes the case feel human.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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