Quick Facts
Biography
Ernest Bertram Lloyd (1881 – 1944) was an English naturalist, humanitarian, vegetarian and campaigner for animal rights. He was the founder of the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports.
Life and work
Lloyd was born in London on 14 May 1881. He was a member of the Lloyd's insurance family and educated privately at Merchant Taylors' School. He then spent two years in Germany, where he attained fluency in German. On his return to London, Lloyd worked for his family's business for a number of years, but his passions ultimately lay elsewhere.
Lloyd was a member of Henry S. Salt's original Humanitarian League and a conscientious objector during the First World War. In 1918, he published his first edited collection of anti-war poems Poems Written During the Great War, 1914–1918, the selected poems critiqued the idealization and glamour of war. In 1919, he published a further anti-war poetry collection The Paths of Glory.
From 1920, he contributed to the ornithology magazine, British Birds. In 1921, Lloyd published The Great Kinship, an anthology of humanitarian poetry. In 1932, he founded the National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports, where he worked as Honorary Secretary for the remainder of his life. From 1935, he was Editor of the journal Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society. He was also a member of the British Ornithologists' Union and Fellow of the Linnean Society of London.
In 1938, he married Sylvia Colenso in Cardigan.
Lloyd suffered from poor health near the end of his life. He became a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society two days before his death and died on 9 June 1944, aged 63.
Selected publications
- (ed.) Poems Written During the Great War, 1914–1918. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1918.
- (ed.) The Paths of Glory: A Collection of Poems Written During the War, 1914-1919. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1919.
- (ed.) The Great Kinship: An Anthology of Humanitarian Poetry. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1921.
- (ed.) Foxhunters' Philosophy: A Garland from Five Centuries. National Society for the Abolition of Cruel Sports. 1938.