The RSPCA Animals’ Rights Symposium

“The Rights of Animals” was a two-day symposium on the “Ethical Aspects of Man’s Relationship with Animals” hosted by the RSPCA at Trinity College, Cambridge on 18 to 19 August 1977.

Thanks to my employee at the time, Compassion In World Farming made it possible for me to attend with their co-founder, ex-dairy farmer now vegetarian anti-factory farmer campaigner, Peter Roberts.

This symposium was an historically important event in the development of the contemporary animal rights movement in its formative stage of the 1970s. It brought together the new generation of activists and thinkers who laid the foundation that today’s movement stands upon.

I would like to see the RSPCA, working in cooperation with today’s movement, host a second “Rights of Animals” conference to critically evaluate progress made to date and determine a strategy for the next 50 years marking the symposium’s half-century anniversary next year.

Cambridge was my first opportunity to hear speak and meet such prominent players as Richard Ryder, Brigid Brophy, Clive Hollands, John Bryant, Andrew Linzey, and many others. It was a pioneering event that brought together activists, politicians, writers, and theologians.

Attendees signed a Declaration Against Speciesism title “The Rights of Animals,” which declared in part

We do not accept that a difference in species alone (any more than a difference in race) can justify wanton exploitation or oppression in the name of science or sport, or for food, commercial profit or other human gain.

I recommended the symposium’s proceedings, Animals’ Rights—A Symposium, edited by David Paterson and Richard Ryder (Centaur Press, 1979). Copies are available to purchase from AbeBooks and other dealers in used books.