Was a guilty social conscience the most important factor in the demise of British Bull-baiting?

There are far more useful primary sources to answer the essay title, and Henry Alken’s article published in The National Sports of Great Britain in 1821 is of great value. Hnery Alken was a British painter and engraver who captured sporting events in his works. Unlike the article from the Bury Post, Alken’s aim is not to give a straight forward account of one particular event as was the case in the Bury Post, but to explain Bull-baiting, its rules, attractions and critisisms. The author of the source, a prolific painter from the period strengthens the source’s reliability, as does the source’s more objective approach to reporting Bull-baiting. The source objectively explains what bull-baiting involves before offering an insight into why the sport fell into demise. The objective nature of the source, combined with the fact that it is contemporary, and written by an authority on the subject of eighteenth and nineteenth century sports support the sources reliability.The source states that the press at the time took on the role of speaking for the outraged humanity and generally concerned itself in appealing to the social conscience of Britain’s masses. The nature of the source, and its reliability give me reason to trust this statement and understand that the guilty social conscience and the sympathy towards the animals that was being expressed not only by great numbers of the population, but that was also being expressed in the increasingly accessable media was a very important factor in the demise of British Bull-baiting and other blood sports.

The two articles already mentioned have helped to answer the essay question and after evaluating their reliability and usefulness, it is evident the two sources are quite easy to compare, and this similar nature of the source’s perhaps explains why they both oppose bull-baiting and appear to represent those who were against bull-baiting. By comparing these sources to a poem entitled ‘The Blind Bull’ from the William Salt Library. The two articles appear to represent those who oppose the sport of bull-baiting and appeal to the social conscience of Early modern England, yet the poem highlights the difference an individual can make, and also the strength of personal views on the topic. The author of the poem, who is unfortunately unknown to me, was passionate enough about the sport of Bull-baiting to write a poem condemning it. I cannot date the source accurately but with the knowledge that William Salt lived from 1803 to 1863 and collected the majoirty of documents in his library in his lifetime, I estimate that the poem was written in the early Nineteenth century. The source is incredibly biased and mocks the sport of Bull-baiting so it cannot be taken as facts over opinion however it is the author’s motive that provides the source’s value. The other sources were written by paid authors who were presumably told to report on bull-baiting whereas this particular individual wrote the poem purely to express his views. The source shows that there were people living in Britain at the time who were extremely passionate about bull-baiting and the cruelty that the animals were subjected to, that they decided to put their thoughts into action. The points made in the poem are not that appropriate when looking into the factors that caused the demise of bull-baiting yet the very purpose of the poem shows us that some indivduals were crucial to the demise. Emma Griffin’s critique and narrative of hunting and animal sports in Britain from 1066, entitled ‘Blood Sport’ highlights some of these individuals and describes the changes they tried to make happen. Sir William Pulteney’s attempts at preventing Bull-bating in 1800 were unsuccessful yet Richard Martin, an Irish politician introduced a bill in 1822 that outlawed acts of cruelty to draft and farm animals yet did not infact outlaw bull baiting completely. Emma Griffin states that the 1822 act was the most remarkableand marks a turning point in the history of blood sports. This source, a published work from a university lecturer, is by far the most reliable and useful source that I used when investsgating the most important factor in the demise of British Bull-baiting. It is a secondary source but incorporates primary sources and an analysis of these in order to provide plenty of information. The source is mostly objective with offerings of the authors own thoughts combined with fact. This source also explains how religion was an important factor in the demise of British bull-baiting with quotes from contemporary puritans teachings about the human relationship with animals. In terms of religion, many argued that animals were sent ‘for our use,but not for our abuse’ and that this mistreatment of animals was ‘sinful and adverse to the divine law’.

There were many factors that bought about the demise of Birtish bull-baiting however I do not think that one can be singled out as the most important. Using the sources I have studied it is evident that although the social conscience of the masses was a mjaor factor, it was the reactions of the media, individuals and government to this guilt that bought about real changes. In terms of religion, the condemning of this cruelty to animals by the church added to the guitly conscience experienced in many areas of society and so is more of a combination factor than one on its own. It was a combination of conscience, individuals, government laws and church pressure that resulted in the demise of bull baiting so that by the end of the nineteenth century, it has completely disappeared.

Bibliography

Bull-baiting at Lavenham, Bury Post (1845)

http://www.foxearth.org.uk/BullBaiting.html

Bull-baiting, in Alken, Henry, The national Sports of Great Britain(1821)

Griffin, Emma: Blood Sport Yale University Press (2007) page 144

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