John Frank Newton

John Frank Newton (1767 – 1837) was a British vegetarianism activist and Zoroastrian.

Biography

Newton was born at St. Christopher in the West Indies in 1767. Newton was a patient of physician William Lambe. He was inspired by the vegetable and distilled water diet of Lambe. Newton was married to Cornelia Collins. Newton's book was written to popularize the research of William Lambe. He promoted a "regimen of distilled water and vegetable diet." He believed that vegetables are the natural food of man and animal flesh is unhealthy and unnatural.

Newton met Percy Bysshe Shelley during 1812–1813 during the salons held at Harriet de Boinville's house in Berkshire and influenced his views on vegetarianism. Historian Keith Thomas has noted that Newton's Return to Nature "provided much of the basis" for Shelley's book, A Vindication of Natural Diet. Newton was a Zoroastrian and discussed the subject with his friend Thomas Love Peacock, in 1813. However, he did not write about the subject.

Lafayette Mendel credits Newton for starting the modern vegetarian movement.

Selected publications

Return to Nature: Or a Defence of the Vegetable Regimen (1811)