Elsie Beatrice Shrigley (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Salling; 30 October 1899 – 13 May 1978), also known as Sally Shrigley, was an English vegan activist and a co-founder, along with

Donald Watson Donald Watson (2 September 1910 – 16 November 2005) was an English animal rights and veganism advocate who co-founded The Vegan Society. Early life Watson was born in Mexborough, Yorkshire, the son of a headmaster in a mining community. As a ...

, of

The Vegan Society The Vegan Society is a registered charity and the oldest vegan organization in the world, founded in the United Kingdom in 1944 by Donald Watson, Elsie Shrigley, George Henderson and his wife Fay Henderson among others. History In Novembe ...

in 1944. She is credited, by some, as coining the word "

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

" with Watson.

Biography

Shrigley was born in North London, in 1899, to a Swedish mother and Danish father. She married Walter Shrigley, a dentist, in 1939. Shrigley became a vegetarian in 1934 and stopped eating dairy from 1944. In August of the same year, Shrigley along with Donald Watson and others called for "a non-dairy section of the Vegetarian Society"; the rejection of this proposal from the society led to the formation of the vegan movement and the founding of The Vegan Society. Shrigley was an honorary secretary of the Croydon Vegetarian Society from 1940 to 1958 and was later a secretary for the Surrey Vegetarian Society. She was also a temporary secretary for the

London Vegetarian Society The Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom (VSUK) is a British registered charity. It campaigns for dietary changes, licenses Vegetarian Society Approved trademarks for vegetarian and vegan products, runs a cookery school and lottery, and or ...

for three months. She was President of The Vegan Society in the early 1960s, then taking various other positions in the society; she served on its committee until her death. She died in

Tonbridge, Kent Tonbridge ( ) (historic spelling ''Tunbridge'') is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Mall ...

in 1978.

References

{{Authority control 1899 births 1978 deaths English veganism activists Activists from London British charity and campaign group workers Founders of charities