Job Caudwell


Job Caudwell was an English publisher, bookseller, editor, and activist. He edited temperance and reform literature and advocated for temperance, vegetarianism, and against vaccination. Caudwell also published and edited multiple temperance periodicals and authored a vegetarian cookbook, Vegetarian Cookery for the Million. He played significant roles in the London Vegetarian Association and the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. He ran a homeopathic institute from his publishing office. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Geographical Society, he was also a member of the Victoria Institute.

Biography

Early life and family

Job Caudwell was born in 1820, at Drayton Manor, Berkshire. He was christened on 17 January 1821 in Drayton. Caudwell was the seventh and youngest son, of William Caudwell and his wife Hannah. Caudwell had 20 siblings. His family belonged to the ancient armigerous Caudwell lineage in Berkshire, which had settled in Abingdon in 1790.
Raised in rural Berkshire, Caudwell later embarked on extensive travels. His academic interests centred on botany and he also engaged in antiquarian research.

Temperance, vegetarianism, and reform

Caudwell was a committed teetotaller, who worked to address what he regarded as the root causes of social problems, particularly those he associated with alcohol consumption. With fellow activist William Horsell he co-published the Temperance Star and the Temperance Spectator. After Horsell's death in 1863, Caudwell published the Journal of Health.
Caudwell became a vegetarian through reading and adorned his home with vegetarian mottos. He was actively involved in the vegetarian movement in London and was involved with the London Vegetarian Association. He published the vegetarian cookbook Vegetarian Cookery for the Million in 1864. Caudwell was also reported, in the Journal of Health, to have climbed Ben Nevis while following a vegetarian diet.
Caudwell was a member of the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League. He also supported homeopathy and hydropathy.

Publishing ventures and health enterprises

In July 1859, Caudwell entered into a publishing partnership with William Horsell at 335 The Strand, which lasted until September 1860.
From the same premises Caudwell also operated a small homeopathic institute, where he dispensed his own preparation of homeopathic cocoa and sold unadulterated flour. His publishing output in the 1860s included temperance dictionaries, health manuals, and studies of Mormonism. He also published Southcottian works and studies of the American Civil War.

Societies and memberships

Caudwell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1863, and in 1879, he became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1891, he became a member of the Victoria Institute.

Public recognition and other activities

Historian James Gregory describes Caudwell as a "household name" in the Victorian temperance movement. In February 1865, a memoir and portrait of Caudwell was published in The Illustrated News of the World, where he served as editor. In 1881, he laid the cornerstone of Putney Methodist Church.

Personal life and death

Caudwell married Eliza Cooper Braine in 1860 and together they had four sons and one daughter. His wife died in 1887. Caudwell married Eliza Harvey in 1901.
Caudwell died on 5 June 1908, aged 87, in Wandsworth, Surrey.

Selected publications

Vegetarian Cookery for the Million
  • ''Job Caudwell's Threepenny Pledge Book''