Charity
This year we are supporting Glasgow Humane Society
Glasgow Humane Society has been saving lives on and around Glasgow’s waterways for over 230 years. Founded in 1790, we are the oldest practical lifesaving organisation in the world. Countless Glaswegians owe their lives to the Officers, Volunteers and Directors of the Society.
The Glasgow Humane Society was set up by members of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow at some point in the 1790s. This period marked the latter stages of what has been came to be termed as the ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Enlightenment movement’ by historians and other scholars alike. It is notable for many features but for the Glasgow Humane Society’s purpose it can be seen as a time when the influence of scholars and philosophers such as Descartes, Newton, Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith
– to name but a few – created in Europe a temperament in man for reason and selfimprovement and moving away from religious intolerance and ignorance. At this previous time if you fell (or jumped) into a waterway and were in danger of drowning
seldom would anyone go to your assistance. In the eyes of the church, if you attempted to take your own life, as many who jumped into the river no doubt had in mind, you were to end up in hell and suffer eternal damnation. If you lived you were a criminal.
On the contrary, ideas of the Enlightenment encouraged people to view other people with sympathy and previous religious intolerance as ridiculous such that if people required help, then they were to receive it. Humane Societies were being formed all over the world. It was only the Glasgow Humane Society that was willing and ready to follow its enlightened principles to the full by employing an Officer to carry out the practical work of prevention, rescue and recovery.
“That a Humane Society should have been established in 1790 in Glasgow is no doubt due to the influence of the medical faculty of the College. It may also be related to the Spirit of the age, the movement that developed throughout the eighteenth century and is known to us as “the Enlightenment”.
This quotation directly captures the aim and ideas of the society at its birth. It is this that has been maintained throughout the years and even in the present day. This Enlightenment ideal has always been and will always be an important part of the Glasgow Humane Society’s ethos.
Find out more about the Glasgow Humane Society
The Glasgow Humane Society is a Scottish Charity (SC001178)
