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Thomas Holliday Barker

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Thomas Holliday Barker
Portrait from Fifty Years of Food Reform (1898)
Born6 July 1818
Peterborough, England
Died26 June 1889 (1889-06-27) (aged 70)
Fallowfield, England
Occupation(s)Temperance and vegetarianism advocate
Spouse
Millicent Bates
​
(m. 1844)​
Children4

Thomas Holliday Barker (6 July 1818 – 26 June 1889) was an English temperance and vegetarianism advocate. He was a founding member of the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA).

Biography

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Thomas Holliday Barker was born in Peterborough on 6 July 1818.[1][2] As a young man he was employed as a clerk for a wine merchant. He worked for Wood & Westhead warehousemen in Manchester from 1844 to 1851.[3] He then became an accountant and commission agent at an office on Princess Street, Manchester.[4][3] Barker suffered from poor health and became a teetotaller.[4] In 1837, he signed an abstinence pledge and became secretary of the Spalding Temperance Society.[2]

In 1843, Barker refused to drink the fermented wine at Wesleyan chapel in Lincoln. This generated controversy, and he was disciplined by the church. As a result, he severed his connection with them.[2] He appealed for support from Frederic Richard Lees.[4]

Barker was a founding member of the United Kingdom Alliance (UKA) and its secretary from 1853 to 1883.[4] He was paid £500 a year and became a well known temperance leader in Britain.[4] He married Millicent Bates in 1844 and they had four sons.[4]

Barker communicated with American temperance advocates such as Edward C. Delavan and Neal Dow.[4] He was a founder of the Union and Emancipation Society. Barker was a vegetarian. In the 1850s, he served in the committee of the Manchester and Salford Vegetarian Association. He authored the vegetarian book, Thoughts, Facts and Hints on Human Dietetics.[4] Barker was influential in converting Francis William Newman to vegetarianism.[4] He was an early member of the Vegetarian Society.[5] He also served as vice-president of the Society.[6]

Barker died in Fallowfield on 26 June 1889.[3]

Selected publications

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  • Thoughts, Facts and Hints on Human Dietetics (1870)

References

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  1. ^ The Annals of Manchester: A Chronological Record from the Earliest Times to the End of 1885. Manchester: John Heywood, 1886. p. 264
  2. ^ a b c Cherrington, Ernest Hurst. (1925). Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem, Volume 1. American Issue Publishing Company. p. 275
  3. ^ a b c Boase, Frederic. (1965). Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memoirs of Persons Who Have Died Between the Years 1851-1900, Volume IV. Frank Cass & Co. p. 267
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Blocker, Jack S. Fahey, David M; Tyrrell, Ian R. (2003). Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Enclyopedia, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. pp. 87-88. ISBN 1-57607-833-7
  5. ^ Forward, Charles W. (1898). Fifty Years of Food Reform: A History of the Vegetarian Movement in England. London: The Ideal Publishing Union. pp. 44-45
  6. ^ "The Vegetarian Society". The Dietetic Reformer and Vegetarian Messenger. CLXXL. 1 March 1886 – via Internet Archive.
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