Ruth Harrison

Who was Ruth Harrison?

Ruth Harrison, daughter of author Stephen Winsten, was a leading British animal-welfare activist and author.

As a Quaker and as a conscientious objector during the Second World War, she served in the Friends Ambulance Unit, first in Hackney, London, and then with displaced persons in Schleswig-Holstein and Bochum in Germany.

In 1964 she published Animal Machines, which describes intensive poultry and livestock farming. The book was said to have exposed the whole reality of intensive farming. It was published in seven countries and was the inspiration for the European Convention for the Protection of Animals Kept for Farming Purposes. In 1986 she was awarded an OBE.

The Australian ethicist Peter Singer has said that reading Animal Machines was important in his becoming a vegetarian and adopting the views that he sets out in Animal Liberation.