7. The End of an Era

In 1981, a private bill to ban the street trade in animals was proposed in the House of Lords. The bill was directed at Club Row Market, whose notoriety as a site of animal cruelty had become a city-wide issue. The argument put forth in the House of Lords was that it should not be possible to buy animals on a whim without a licence because, as the Times noted, such animals were “destined for laboratory experiments.” The RSPCA and the British Veterinary Association lent their support to the bill. Yet it did not receive government support and was never implemented, although stricter measures were once again employed for the containment of London’s pet markets.

Animal rights activists had been protesting against Club Row Market for decades. They were horrified by the cruel treatment of the animals being sold at the market and the fact that many of them ended up in laboratory experiments. As Sue, a Club Row Market protestor in the early 1980s, recalled:

Every Sunday, come rain or shine, a group of diverse individuals made their way to Club Row to protest against the brutality of the “pet” market held there. There, from the back of vans and cars, all manner of creatures were paraded for sale--to all manner of buyers. Children chided parents to buy totally inappropriate animals with no idea of how to care for them and often no idea even what species they were. Unaccompanied children also bought animals without question. It was sickening to see and hear the distress of living creatures traded like bags of sweets.

Having come from a rather naive existence in the North of England to make my fortune in the capital, I knew no one and do not even remember how I came to be involved--but involved I became. Shocked by the brutality by which these unfortunate creatures were displayed and handled from cages, boxes, car boots and vans to be sold to whoever had the money to pay, was heartbreaking.

Worse was to come. One of our numbers, Angela Walder, was particularly vocal and with admiration, I edged closer to her to hear what she had to say. She was telling the police, ever-present to ensure we did not disrupt the sales, that she knew some of these animals were stolen and that some buyers were buying for vivisection laboratories. She pointed to the right of the market--to dark arches where larger animals were held, boxes of dogs, puppies, cats and kittens. One man bought a whole box of kittens--now I knew why. Week after week Angela was arrested but came back more vocal than before. As I got to know her I learned she had been involved in animal research and realising its futility and cruelty, not only turned her back on it but fought it.

Homesick, I soon returned to the North--but returned a different person. I set up an animal rights group with local successes, but will never forget the distress of those animals so brutally sold to the highest bidder. Nor the bravery of those individuals who fought endlessly for their freedom.

Angela Walder remembered battling with street traders over animals that gave to laboratory experiments: "We had all sorts of tricks, like sort of, we found out where they all lived, and we used to go round and put water in the diesel or sugar in the petrol, and so they couldn't get there at 2 o'clock, and that would keep them away for that week. And, we really just reduced the whole place to mayhem." She recalled a demonstration of some 4,000 people between Club Row and Dorset Street in the 1970s.

Relentless pressure from animal rights activists and animal protection groups eventually prompted the British government to amend the 1951 Pet Animals Act. The necessary amendment came in 1983 with the addition of a second section dictating that “pets cannot be sold in the street, including on barrows and markets” (gov.uk, 1983). This banned the sale of all live animals in markets, thereby bringing Club Row Market’s three-hundred-year history to a close.