Charles W. Forward

Charles Walter Forward (19 August 1863 – 9 June 1934) was an English activist for animal rights and vegetarianism, writer, editor, and historian. Forward made significant contributions to the vegetarian movement and is best known for his 1898 work, Fifty Years of Food Reform, which was the first book to document its history.

Charles Walter Forward was born in Islington, Middlesex, on 19 August 1863, to Charles John Forward and his wife Catherine. He was his parents' only surviving child and had a frail youth, with his education often sacrificed for the sake of his health. Forward's health struggles led him to develop an interest in physiology. He became a vegetarian in 1878, inspired by a passage from William Cullen in Richard Phillips's A Million of Facts.

Forward joined the Vegetarian Society in 1881 while working as a bookbinder at 6 Blackfriars Road, London. As a leading London vegetarian, he had a close but critical association with A. F. Hills. He later served as vice-president.

Forward was heavily involved in vegetarian journalism, serving as the editor of the Herald of Health and founding the Hygienic/Vegetarian Review. He also published many works on vegetarianism and has been described as a historian of the vegetarian movement. Forward's first published work was The Manual of Vegetarianism: A Complete Guide to Food Reform, which he co-authored with R. E. O'Callaghan in 1890.He authored a cookery book commissioned by J. S. Virtue in 1891 and edited the Vegetarian Yearbook, Birthday Book (1898), and Jubilee Library.

In 1893, he published a satire through Nichols, titled Confessions of a Vegetarian, focusing on London vegetarian personalities. The same year, he collaborated with C. D. Steele on a musical sketch, "Only a Crossing Sweeper". By 1895, he was involved with the South London Food Reform Society and announced the production of a journal called Pure Food, the Journal of the Food Reform Movement, which was likely never produced.

In 1897, Forward advocated for the amalgamation of vegetarian journals. That same year, he edited and published a new edition of John Smith's vegetarian treatise, Fruits and Farinacea. The edition was heavily criticised by The British Medical Journal, which dismissed the work as unscientific.

Speaking at the National Vegetarian Congress in 1899, Forward argued that although the vegetarian movement was increasing, vegetarian restaurants in London had decreased in number. He noted that affordable tinned meat had become widely available and how some of the purported vegetarian restaurants were not strictly vegetarian as they were serving meat dishes.

In the early 20th century, he edited the short-lived London Vegetarian Association Quarterly. In 1913, Forward contributed the chapter "Slaughter-House Cruelties" to the book The Under Dog, edited by Sidney Trist. The book documented the wrongs suffered by animals at the hand of man. He also edited The Animals' Guardian, subtitled "A Humane Journal for the Better Protection of Animals". This monthly periodical was published by the London and Provincial Anti-Vivisection Society.