William Cowherd
Christian minister and vegetarianism activist (1763–1816)
William Cowherd (1763 – 24 March 1816) was an English Christian minister and vegetarianism activist. He founded the Bible Christian Church in Salford, whose members were encouraged to abstain from meat and alcoholic drink. The church was later associated with the early vegetarian movement in Britain, including the formation of the Vegetarian Society in 1847.
Early life
After teaching philology at Beverley, Cowherd moved to Manchester and became curate to Rev. John Clowes at St John's Church. He studied the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and, like Clowes, adopted Swedenborgian doctrine. He preached at the Swedenborgian church in Peter Street. According to William Axon, Cowherd was said to have been the only man to read Swedenborg's Latin writings in their entirety.
Bible Christian Church
In 1800, Cowherd established a new congregation in Salford and built a chapel at his own expense. The chapel, Christ Church, was located on King Street, Salford, across the River Irwell from Manchester.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Cowherd” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.