George Thorndike Angell (June 5, 1823 – March 16, 1909) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

, philanthropist

Philanthropist

A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

, and advocate for the humane treatment of animals.

He was born in Southbridge, Massachusetts

Southbridge, Massachusetts

The Town of Southbridge is a city in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 16,719 at the 2010 census.-History:...

, graduated from Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

 in 1846, studied law at the Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, and in 1851 was admitted to the bar in Boston, where he practiced for many years.

While attending horse races in 1866 he witnessed two horses being run to death. Motivated by this incident and inspired by the work of Henry Bergh

Henry Bergh

Henry Bergh founded the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in April, 1866, three days after the first effective legislation against animal cruelty in the United States was passed into law by the New York State Legislature...

 in New York, his advocacy for the humane treatment of animals became a lifelong passion."GEORGE T. ANGELL DEAD: Known Here as 'the Friend of the Animals.'", The New York Times, 17 March 1909, p 9. [ProQuest Historical Newspapers, New York Times (1857-Current file), Document ID 101871551]

In 1868 he founded and became president of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in the same year establishing and becoming editor of Our Dumb Animals, a journal for the promotion of organized effort in securing the humane treatment of animals. For many years he was active in the organization of humane societies in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and America. In 1882 he initiated the movement for the establishment of Bands of Mercy (for the promotion of humane treatment of animals), of which in 1908 there were more than 72,000 in active existence. In 1889 he founded and became president of the American Humane Education Society.

He became well known as a criminologist and also as an advocate of laws for the safeguarding of the public health and against adulteration of food.

After suffering from failing health for a long time, he died at his apartments at the Hotel Westminster in Boston at the age of 85. He is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery

Mount Auburn Cemetery

Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded in 1831 as "America's first garden cemetery", or the first "rural cemetery", with classical monuments set in a rolling landscaped terrain...

in Cambridge/Watertown.