Jessey Wade


Jessey Wade was an English suffragist and campaigner for animal welfare, known for founding the Cats Protection League. She co-founded a number of other animal welfare organizations and helped create and was editor of the feminist journal Urania.

Life and work

Wade was friends with fellow animal welfare campaigner Ernest Bell and worked for him as a personal secretary until his death. Bell edited the journal The Animals' Friend and Wade became editor, after Edith Carrington, of its sister journal intended for children, The Little Animals' Friend; she also edited the Cats Protection League's journal The Cats' Mews-Sheet.
Wade was Honorary Secretary of the Children’s Department for the Humanitarian League, from 1906 until 1919.
In 1916, she co-founded Urania, a journal which formed part of a campaign to erase all distinctions based on gender.
In 1927, Wade was the organiser of a meeting in Caxton Hall, London, which established the Cats Protection League. In the same year, Wade co-founded, with Ernest Bell and John Galsworthy, the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports and in 1932, the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. She was also a member of the Women's Freedom League, Pit Ponies' Protection Society, Performing and Captive Animals' Defence League.
In 1935, she gave a speech for the Humane Education Society in Manchester.
In 1948, she retired from editing The Little Animals' Friend, after having worked on it for 50 years.
Wade died in 1952, aged 91.

Contributions to animal organisations

Wade founded and made significant contributions to a number of animal advocacy organisations: