Sidney Trist

Sidney George Trist MJI (1865 – 2 December 1918) was an English activist, journalist and editor. He advocated for animal welfare, anti-vivisection, anti-vaccination, and vegetarianism. He edited several animal welfare publications, including the Animal World and the Animals' Guardian, and served as secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society. Trist published numerous pamphlets and books advocating against vivisection and vaccination, notably circulating a letter from Mark Twain condemning vivisection. His works, such as Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates and The Under Dog, highlighted animal cruelty and emphasized the educational power of visuals. He was also a committee member of Battersea Dogs' Home, ensuring no dogs were sold to vivisectors.

Life and work


Sidney George Trist was born in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the third quarter of 1865. He later moved to Wandsworth, London, where he married Florence Mogg in 1893; they had four children.

Trist was the editor of the Animal World, and Animals' Friend. He was also the secretary of the London Anti-Vivisection Society (later the London and Provincial Anti-vivisection Society), and the editor of its publication, the Animals' Guardian. He was later elected to serve on the Battersea Dogs' Home committee, where he "ensured that its policy of never selling any dog to a vivisector was maintained". Trist's advocacy for vegetarianism in the journals he edited resulted in his alienation by some anti-vivisectionists, who viewed his stance as too radical.

In 1894, Trist published his first pamphlet, A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question, which advocated against vivisection. This was followed by pamphlets critical of vaccination (focusing on the rabies vaccine particularly): Pasteurism Discredited, and A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia, as well as others on anti-vivisection: The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection, and A Cloud of Witnesses. Mark Twain wrote a letter to Trist in 1899, condemning vivisection; Trist widely circulated the letter in the press and had many copies printed as a pamphlet by the London Anti-Vivisection Society.

In 1901, Trist published his first book, Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers. In 1904, he published Dog Stories, which included the works of Émile Zola, with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome. Trist provided the preface to Albert Leffingwell's 1908 book The Vivisection Controversy.

In 1913, Trist published an illustrated collection of essays, The Under Dog: A Series of Papers by Various Authors on the Wrongs Suffered by Animals at the Hands of Man; Trist wrote that the essays "justify this effort to expose to the eyes of humanity the naked horrors which abound in their midst, and to which they are either blind or indifferent." The book was reviewed in several newspapers. J. Keri Cronin asserts that Trist recognised the significance of visuals in education and advocacy, emphasizing the effectiveness of teaching through visuals, rather than sound and, as a result, made illustrations a prominent feature in the publications he edited. In the same year, he published Tell Me a Story, a selection of fiction on animals by various authors.

Trist died on 2 December 1918, at the age of 53, in Wandsworth.

Selected publications

 * A Birds-Eye View of a Great Question (1894)
 * Pasteurism Discredited: What Scientific and Medical Witnesses Assert (1895)
 * A Rational Cure for Hydrophobia: Buissonism versus Pasteurism: A Contrast and a Moral (1896)
 * The Danger to Hospital Patients in the Practice of Vivisection (1896)
 * A Cloud of Witnesses (c. 1899)
 * Birds and Beasts Within Our Gates: A Book for Animal Lovers (1901)
 * Dog Stories (with introduction by Jerome K. Jerome; 1904)
 * The Under Dog: A Series of Papers by Various Authors on the Wrongs Suffered by Animals at the Hands of Man (1913)
 * Tell Me a Story (1913)