The NAVS of the UK is the world's first
anti-vivisection organisation, founded in 1875 by
Frances Power Cobbe, a humanitarian who authored articles and leaflets opposing animal experiments. The Society was formed on 2 December 1875 in
Victoria Street, London, under the name of the Victoria Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection. Other founding members were the physician George Hoggan, journalist
Richard Holt Hutton and clergyman
Henry Edward Manning. The Society's first President was
Lord Shaftesbury. This caused some early members such as George Hoggan the then honorary secretary and vice-president Archbishop of York
William Thomson to resign. In 1969, NAVS formed the International Association against Painful Experiments on Animals (IAAPEA). In 1990 the Society, having outgrown the premises in
Harley Street it had occupied since 1964 (a move engineered by the then Secretary,
Wilfred Risdon), moved to Goldhawk Road, London, with a subsequent move in 2006 to Millbank Tower, London.
Abolition From 1878–1898, the National Anti-Vivisection Society had demanded total abolition of vivisection. Its president was the
Earl of Tankerville. An active member of LPAVS was a former British Union of Fascists member
Norah Elam.
Sidney Trist was its secretary. It published ''The Animals' Guardian'', an illustrated magazine. During 1916 and 1917, Elam obtained work as supervisor of a typewriting pool at the
Medical Research Council (MRC), gaining a wealth of information she was to use later in articles published under the auspices of the LPAVS during 1934 and 1935. In March 1921, Elam advertised in
The Times and chaired a public meeting of LPAVS to discuss 'The Dog's Bill' (a bill to prohibit the vivisection of Dogs) that was being debated in Parliament at that time. The meeting was held at the
Aeolian Hall in London and as Chair, Elam read out 20 letters from Members of Parliament in support of the bill, and stated that, 'A large majority of the public were strongly in favour of the measure, and she felt sure that victory would be theirs if a determined effort were made, especially if women made proper use of their new political power'. In 1932, the MRC had produced a paper called 'Vitamins, A Survey of Present Knowledge'. Elam's 1934 response was entitled 'The Vitamin Survey, A Reply' and was a critical appraisal of that survey and its results. This was followed in 1935 by 'The Medical Research Council, What it is and how it works'. The second paper was based on the same arguments about MRC research practices and remits as the first paper, but distilled and argued more cogently on a broader front. Elam's argument was that 'powerful vested interests' had managed to 'entrench' themselves behind 'State-aided research', and had managed to make themselves unaccountable; the public were unable to influence the decisions about what research should be undertaken, and it operated like a closed shop, only answerable to itself. Elam also argued that the research involved the cruel and inhumane use of animals, and that any thinking person had to question how and why research and results based on animal models could safely be extrapolated to humans. Finally, she complained that animal experimentation was doubly cruel because of the unnecessary repetition of experiments to replicate or prove the same point, which in many cases she argued could have been arrived at by simple, common sense. These papers were widely distributed and copies could be found in libraries throughout the UK. This amalgamation was administered and encouraged by the contemporary Committee Secretary,
Wilfred Risdon, who became Secretary of the NAVS thereafter.
Modern movement After sustained lobbying by animal welfare organisations and other interested parties, in 1983 the UK Government announced that it intended to replace the Cruelty to Animals Act (at that time still in force despite it being introduced nearly one hundred years previously) and published a White Paper that (after consultation) would eventually form the basis of the new legislation. In light of its perceived weakness of the Government's proposals, and realising that outright abolition was unachievable in the current political climate, NAVS worked with other UK groups such as BUAV,
Animal Aid and the Scottish Society, in the drawing-up of a list of key experiments that should be banned under new legislation. This list included a ban on the use of animals in tests for cosmetics, tobacco, alcohol products; warfare experiments; psychological and behavioural tests; a ban on the
Median lethal dose and
Draize eye irritancy tests, as well as other measures in relation to the administration of the legislation. Although the
Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act received Royal Assent on 20 May 1986 and was later described as being an important factor in the UK having the "tightest system of regulation in the world", this view was not supported by animal welfare organisations. It would not be until the late 1990s that a change of Government brought in bans on the use of animals for cosmetics research and a ban on the use of great apes would start the process of change. These were followed by the
Freedom of Information Act 2000, which permitted wider public scrutiny of some scientific procedures. More recently, in 2009, the year in which the European directive on
animal testing regulations was being comprehensively reviewed for the first time in over two decades, NAVS and its animal and environmental group,
Animal Defenders International, joined a call for a Europe-wide ban on the use of non-human primates in research. Although only minor concessions were secured in this area when legislation was subsequently passed in September 2010, the authors of the directive acknowledged that it was "an important step towards achieving the final goal of full replacement of procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes as soon as it is scientifically possible to do so". The authors also recommended that the directive be regularly reviewed so as to reflect the scientific advances made in this area, thereby leaving open the possibility that future legislation will incorporate more safeguards to ensure the protection and welfare of animals used in scientific experiments. == Mission ==