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A Horse's Best Friend

© Megan Drummond

We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.

Anna Sewell was born on March 20, 1820, in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England. Anna’s father was a banker and her mother was the author of books for children. Anna learned the craft of writing by watching her mother and copying her mother’s manuscripts by hand.

The Sewell’s were a Quaker family. Quakers were, and are, very sensitive to the treatment of animals. The Quaker teachings are focused on love and compassion, and a “tender consideration for all the creatures of God.” Hunting for sport and any other mistreatment of an animal dismayed young Anna and she and her mother often protested whenever they witnessed the mistreatment of a horse. They protested to the point that the drivers of the horses often threatened to beat them along with the animals.

At the age of 14, Anna became disabled. She suffered a fall that severely injured one of her knees. The knee did not heal properly, leaving the young girl with a limp. This is the time that she began helping her mother with the manuscripts. Anna walked with a crutch, but was exceptionally skilled at riding and driving horses.

Anna drove her father to work each morning that the family had a horse and carriage. The fact that the family did not always have a horse made Anna’s skill with the animals all the more amazing. She usually controlled them with voice alone, drove with a loose rein and never used a whip. She was once heard saying to her horse, “We must get thee to the station right away, or else everyone will be cross.”

Anna Sewell was not a prolific writer. She wrote only one book in her lifetime; the popular and enduring Black Beauty. Distressed by the public ignorance of the mistreatment of horses, Anna wrote Black Beauty in her 50’s, when she could no longer leave her house, as the autobiography of a horse. She wrote of all the abuses the horse suffered during his life, of the joys and the sadness animals experience.

Black Beauty accomplished its purpose. Soon after its publication in 1877, people began to realize what they were doing to these animals. Unfortunately, Anna died shortly after the book was published, on April 25, 1878, and did not get the see the changes that her words were a catalyst for.

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