One of my Christmas beers was Sambrook’s Brown Dog Riot. Many beers these days have strange or unusual names but this one commemorates some curious events in Battersea at the turn of the 20th century which I think are worth telling.
The story starts in February 1903 when the physiologist Dr William Bayliss of University College London, while conducting research into hormones, performed an experiment on a brown terrier dog in front of 60 medical and veterinary students. Bayliss insisted that the dog had been properly anaesthetised but two of the observers, later identified as ‘Swedish activists’, thought otherwise and reported the matter to the National Anti-Vivisection Society. The Society accused Bayliss of ‘cruel and unlawful’ behaviour but Bayliss responded by successfully suing the NAVS for libel.
In 1906, the anti-vivisection movement revived the controversy by commissioning a memorial in the form of a fountain surmounted by a bronze statue of the unfortunate dog and bearing the inscription ‘In Memory of the Brown Terrier Dog Done to Death in the Laboratories of University College in February 1903 after having endured Vivisections extending over more than two months and having been handed over from one Vivisector to another till Death came to his release. Also in memory of the 232 dogs vivisected in the same place during the year 1902. Men and women of England, how long shall these Things be?’ As Battersea, a hotbed of radicalism at the time, was already known for the Dogs’ Home (established 30 years earlier) the Borough Council agreed to it being installed on the Latchmere Recreation Ground. George Bernard Shaw and Charlotte Despard were among those who attended the unveiling.
Public opinion had generally sided with the antivivisectionists and a Royal Commission was set up in 1906 but did not report its findings until 1912.
The statue was regularly vandalised. Pro-vivisection students were blamed, given that they had declared that the statue was ‘an insult to medical research’. It got so bad that a 24 hour police guard was put on the statue. The situation worsened in 1907 when, on 10 December, a large number of the students, styling themselves the ‘anti-doggers’ and bolstered by contingents from Oxford and Cambridge Universities, staged a march through central London, bearing effigies of the deceased dog on sticks. At Trafalgar Square they met with opposition from groups of suffragettes and trade unionists and it reportedly took several hundred police officers to bring the situation under control. There were several further such incidents which became known as the Brown Dog Riots.
Battersea Borough Council decided to put an end to the problems by removing the statue. In March 1910, four of their workers, under cover of darkness and reportedly protected by a contingent of 120 policemen, did the deed. It is believed that the statue was melted down shortly after. A protest rally was held in Trafalgar Square and a petition demanding its reinstatement gathered 20,000 signatures but that was effectively the end of the events.
The dog was not however forgotten. In 1985, a new statue of the brown dog, by Nicola Hicks, was commissioned by anti-vivisection groups. It is different from the original and can be found in Battersea Park, on the Woodland Walk, near the English Garden. This statue is dedicated to all animals used in testing around the world.
As for the beer, to quote Sambrook’s website, Brown Dog Riot is loaded with West Coast hops and deep, satisfying dark malted barley. It has citrus fruit and pine resin flavours, coupled with toffee and bready caramel notes. It is currently available from the brewery in 440ml cans and minikegs. Go to https://www.sambrooksbrewery.co.uk/.
Finally, I should add that Sambrook’s are close to completing their relocation from Battersea to the Ram Quarter, the site of the former Young’s brewery, in Wandsworth.