In 1837, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) sponsored an essay competition, with a prize of £100, for the best essay encouraging greater kindness to animals (illustrating "the obligations of humanity as due to the brute creation").[3][4][5] Styles won the competition with his essay The Animal Creation: Its Claims on Our Humanity Stated and Enforced, an early work on animal welfare.[4] Historian Rod Preece described Styles as an early church animal welfare proponent.[6]
Styles based his arguments on Christian principles from the Bible, arguing that animals feel pain and suffer as humans do and that because God has given humans dominion over animals, they should treat them with benevolence and mercy.[4][5] Historian Anna Feuerstein has noted that "Styles compares humans to a shepherd, positioning animal welfare as pastoral power".[5] The book was positively reviewed in The Herald of Peace and The Monthly Review.[7][8]
Styles opposed all forms of hunting and vivisection.[3][4] He was not a vegetarian, but did criticise the luxuries of meat-eating. Rod Preece has suggested that Styles plagiarised from An Essay on Humanity to Animals (1798), by Thomas Young (1772–1835) of Trinity College, Cambridge, and that the SPCA jury did not notice the borrowings.[4][9]
^ abcFeuerstein, Anna. (2019). The Political Lives of Victorian Animals: Liberal Creatures in Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press. pp. 63-64. ISBN978-1-108-49296-6