Protests During Brown Dog Affair

Date: December 10, 1907 • Location: Battersea, United Kingdom

During the Brown Dog affair, protesters marched through London and clashed with police officers in Trafalgar Square over the existence of a memorial for animals that had been vivisected.

The Brown Dog affair was a political controversy about vivisection that raged in Britain from 1903 until 1910. It involved the infiltration of University of London medical lectures by Swedish feminists, battles between medical students and the police, police protection for the statue of a dog, a libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, and the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the use of animals in experiments. The affair became a cause célèbre that divided the country.