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In 1944 Donald Watson & his wife to be Dorothy coined the word "Vegan" whilst living in Leicester and now there are are around 2.5 million vegans in the UK, roughly 4.7% of the population!!!The Watson bar is named after Donald Watson and is completely vegan. It has an extensive list of drinks including mocktails and cocktails. Come along to raise a glass to 80 years of Veganism!!!
Watson Bar has agreed to dedicate this night to this anniversary and there will be DJ on the night playing various tracks from the past decades. Note that the bar is next to the main train station and so easy to get too coming from outside of Leicester.
Birth of the Vegan Society
Donald Watson and his wife Dorothy coined the word “vegan” while living in Leicester in the 1940s. Donald went on to co-found the organisation which become The Vegan Society, which is a thriving organization today promoting veganism and providing information to vegans in the UK and further afield.
Watson lived on Evesham Road in Leicester so a Heritage Panel has been located on Evesham Road, at its junction with Narborough Road, a busy main road into Leicester from junction 21 of the M1.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/new-heritage-panel-celebrates-leicester-9144364
The panel includes the history of veganism, Donald Watson’s link to Leicester and some information about his life. He became vegetarian at the age of 14 after witnessing the slaughter of a pig on his uncle’s farm. Moving to Leicester to work as a woodwork teacher he then learnt about milk and egg production and started eating a vegan diet, without it yet having a name to describe it. After learning about milk and egg, he wrote that ‘If we are to be true emancipators of animals we must renounce absolutely our traditional and conceited attitude that we have the right to use them to serve our needs’.
In 1944 Donald Watson held a meeting with interested members of the Leicester branch of the Vegetarian Society to discuss their dietary and ethical choices. Vegans at that time were called ‘non-dairy vegetarians’. When creating a new term for their way of life, rejected words included ‘dairyban’, ‘vitan’, and ‘benevore’. Donald and Dorothy eventually came up with the word vegan which is created from the first three and last two letters of ‘vegetarian’.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
94 Granby Street, Leicester, LE1 6, United Kingdom
