Frances Power Cobbe and the Anti-Vivisection Controversy in Victorian Britain, 1870-1904
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University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies Legacy Theses 2000 "Those candid and ingenuous vivisectors": Frances Power Cobbe and the anti-vivisection controversy in Victorian Britain, 1870-1904 Montgomery, Brooke Montgomery, B. (2000). "Those candid and ingenuous vivisectors": Frances Power Cobbe and the anti-vivisection controversy in Victorian Britain, 1870-1904 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/13131 http://hdl.handle.net/1880/39765 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY "Those Candid and Ingenuous Vivisectors": Frances Power Cobbe and the tinti-Vivisection Controversy in Victorian Britain, 1 870-1 904. Brooke ~Montgomery A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA my2000 O Brooke Montgomery 2000 National Library Bibliothhue nationale 191 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1AON4 Canada Canada Your hk Votre r~fcirmtd Our 1Ye Norre rdHnmae The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde me licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pernettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prster, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts f?om it Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent etre imprirnes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT This thesis examines the anti-vivisection controveny of late Victorian Britain, looking particularly at the involvement of Frances Power Cobbe, leader and morai centre of the movement It explores the way that the idea of progress informed arguments on both sides of the debate and turned emerging scientific discourse into contested ground on which two sides fought over which would be the one to define what progress meant for British society. Women were prominent on the anti-vivisection side while men dominated the growing scienufic profession and consequently the arguments of Cobbe and others that emerged out of the controversy were gendered and frequently made associations between the treatment of women and of animals. Many people were instrumental in helping me complete this thesis. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Douglas Peen without whose support and guidance this study could not have been completed. I would also like to thank memben of the History Department who provided input on this thesis, particularly the members of my committee, Dr. Elizabeth Jameson and Dr. Martln Staum. Thanks also to Dr. Gretchen MacMillan fiom the Political Science department who was the external examiner. In addition I must thank the Rstory Department for their generous financial support which allowed me to devote most of my time and energy to my studies. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my fellow graduate students, Chns Mummery, Jeff Wigelsworth, James Ems, James Warren and Kristin Bumett, who provided fhendship, emotional support and humour throughout my two years of study. I would particularly like to thank Whitney Lackenbauer who offered invaluable insight and advice and who was always a good sparring partner during our fiequent debates. Thanks also to my co-workers in the University Archives who were always interested in my work, supportive and encouraging. I would like to offer a very special thanks to my dear friend Jennifer Arthur who was always there when I needed to talk or go shopping and who is truly a 'kindred spirit' Finally, thank you to my parents Bill and Sharonne Montgomery and my brother Craig for their love and support and for their unwavering faith in my abilities. I could not have done it without them. TABLE OF CONTENTS Approval Page. ................................................................................... ii .-. Abstract.......................................................................................... -111 Acknowledgements.............................................................................. iv Table of Contents................................................................................. v Introduction. ................ Chapter One: Context of Controversy: ...................................................... 17 Animal Welfare Sentiment and the Regulation of Vivisection. 1800-1900 Chapter Two: The Life of Frances Power Cobbe: ........................................36 Philanthropy as Woman's Mission Chapter Three: Feminising the Anima! Body: ........................................... .1lO Women, Animals and Anti-Vivisection in the Writing of Frances Power Cobbe Conclusion.. ................................................................................... .I44 Bibliography.................................................................................... 147 INTRODUCTION Controversy over the practice of vivisection has plagued scientists fiom the nineteenth centuly until the present in both Britain and North America. It has become a particularly contentious issue in the last thirty years as animal rights proponents have united to promote the liberation of animals from laboratories. Contemporary debates about the practice of vivisection, however, are substantially different fiom nineteenth-century arguments. Today, philosophers such as Peter Singer, Tom Regan and Stephen Clarke, though arguing &om different philosophical perspectives, all agree that animals are intrinsically valuable and morally relevant beings who have the right to live free fiom human abuse and exploitation.' The =ti-vivisection movement of late Victorian Bntain, though in many ways a precursor to today because it engaged in questions of our moral obligation to animals, had a fbndamentally different philosophical starting point. In the past, debate centred primarily on the morality of causing pain to helpless animals, yet those involved in the movement never questioned the hierarchy of being that placed humans above animals. Singer, Regan and Clarke agree that the existence of a hierarchy of being -has been used, and continues to be used, as the justification for many forms of animal abuse, including the use of animals for vivisection. What the contemporary animal rights movement does have in common with the anti- vivisection movement of the nineteenth century is the substantial presence of women. I See Keith Tester, -4nimals and Sociey: The Hummip of Animal Rights (New York : Roudedge. t 99 1). 1- 16 for a ddiscussion of the basic arguments of Singer, Regan and Clake. See also, Peter Singer, .4nimal Liberation, (New Yok: Avon Books, 1 979,Tom Regan, The Case for.4nmalRighrs.h. (BakeIq: Universic of California Press, 1983). Tom Regan, The Sn~ggIefor Animal Righn, (Clarke Summit: International Society for Animal Rights, Inc., 1987), and Stephen Clarke, ThehfomlSrms of .4nimalr. (Oshrd: Clmdon Press, 1977). Currently, women compose seventy to eighty percent of animal rights adherents.' It cannot, however, be stated that anti-vivisection was a feminist cause, then or now. Although women who supported it in the nineteenth century often recognised that the oppression of both women and animals was interconnected and that many members of the movement were also feminists, the two causes never actually united and, in fact, sometimes saw their aims as antithetical. The distance between the two groups became more acute in the twentieth century as liberal feminists made a concerted effort to dissociate themselves from any identdication with animals or animal causes because they believed that much of the justification for women's alleged inferiority was based on their association with the "animal," represented by the body. Men, on the other hand, were traditionally linked to the mind or rationality. And as Lynda Birke puts it "to be closer to animals in our culture is to be denigrated."' Feminists, therefore, have asserted that women and men are both rational being distinct fiom animals. But the implication is that they are better than animals and indeed the identification of women as rational agents has deliberately rested on the premise that humans and animals are different and that 'humanness' is a superior quality. Some feminists and male supporters of feminism within the animal rights movement, however, are beginning to challenge the traditional human centred view and to see it as part of the dominant and patriarchal culture. They argue that liberal feminists are buylng into this culture when they privilege the mind over the body, the human over the animal, and reason over emotion.