William Horsell was born in Brinkworth, Wiltshire on 31 March 1807. Before the age of twenty he was preaching the gospel and became a temperance activist in 1833.[1] In 1838, Horsell established the Anti-Nicotine Society at Congleton, Cheshire.[2] Horsell founded the Nature's Beverage Society in 1842. The Society aimed to spread abstinence from all artificial beverages.[3]
Horsell operated a hydropathic infirmary at Northwood Villa, Ramsgate.[4] It has been described as the first vegetarian hospital in Britain.[5] In 1847, a meeting was held at the hospital from which the Vegetarian Society was formed.[4] Horsell was secretary of the Vegetarian Society for several years.[6] In 1856, Horsell noted that there were a thousand members of the Society.[6] He managed the Society from his London office.[7]
Horsell edited the Truth Tester, which became the Society's official journal.[4] The journal described vegetarianism as "the next practical moral subject which is likely to call forth the virtuous energy of society".[6] In 1850, it was renamed the Vegetarian Advocate.[8] Horsell stepped down as Secretary and his journal ceased in 1850.[9] From 1849, the Vegetarian Society's President James Simpson published the Vegetarian Messenger.[9] In 1850, Simpson moved the Vegetarian Society office to Manchester and Vegetarian Messenger became the Society's official journal.[9] Horsell remained active with the London branch of the Vegetarian Society.[7]
Another publication of Horsell's was the monthly The Journal of Health & Phrenological Magazine which amongst its contributors was the popular temperance lecturer Jabez Inwards, a fellow teetotaler and phrenologist .[10]
He authored a popular hydropathic manual and was an advocate of phrenology.[6] He was a publisher for vegetarian and spiritualist literature.[6] His wife Elizabeth Horsell was also a vegetarian.[6]
In 1849, Horsell published Asenath Nicholson's Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians, in London. A review in the Vegetarian Advocate, noted that "butter and eggs are excluded" from the recipes.[12] The Vegan Society have cited the book as the first vegan cookbook.[13]
Horsell died of a fever, while on board the Just, on 23 December 1863, while on an anti-slavery mission to Nigeria. He was buried in Lagos Cemetery, West Africa.[14]
^Blocker, Jack S. Fahey, David M; Tyrrell, Ian R. (2003). Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Enclyopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 634. ISBN1-57607-833-7
^ abcdefGregory, James. (2007). Of Victorians and Vegetarians: The Vegetarian Movement in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Tauris Academic Studies. pp. 31-52, pp. 72-73, p. 104. ISBN978-1-84511-379-7