Matthew Melsa & Kate Stewart
Matthew Melsa (formerly Matthew Cole), Lecturer in Sociology at the Open University in the UK, and his colleague Dr. Kate Stewart, Principal Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham University in the UK, received a grant from CAF to digitize, transcribe, edit, and analyze the unpublished personal archive of Donald Watson, co-founder of The Vegan Society in 1944. Matthew writes:
Watson’s personal archive comprises several hundred letters and other documents, including observations on the history, progress and future of veganism in correspondence with and from other key figures in the vegan movement and Watson’s siblings. It also includes unpublished photographs, a handwritten ‘nature diary’ from 1929 which includes many reflections on animals, arguments against animal exploitation, and so on, variant drafts of published articles for The Vegan magazine and elsewhere, and letters to Donald Watson’s local newspaper. We already have agreed access to the archive from Donald Watson’s heir and his support for this project, including digitisation and publication, and we have already been able to view the archive in person, so we are aware of its extent and significance. Hard copies of the diverse published writings of Donald Watson are also already in our possession. These largely comprise The Vegan magazine during Watson’s tenure as editor in the 1940s, early pamphlets published by the Society, and later articles and interviews he contributed to The Vegan (notably in the late 1980s and early 2000s). Many of these publications are difficult to access and have never been compiled together.
Through receiving the 2018 grant from CAF, Matthew and his collaborator Kate were able to secure two additional grants from the Open University to continue their work transcribing documents, cleaning up data, making the archive available online, and publishing an edited collection of Donald Watson’s published and unpublished work from the archive. In August 2020, Matthew and Kate lectured on the project (below), and Matthew co-presented on further developments on the project in a talk at The Vegan Society’s research day in September 2024. The Vegan Society is mounting an exhibition in the Birmingham UK Public Library in Summer 2025.
Meanwhile, the archive itself continues to expand, and is slated to be transferred to a permanent home in 2026. Matthew is now working on his PhD at the Open University. His thesis is provisionally titled: “The Birth of Veganism: Documenting the Emergence and Organisation of the Vegan Movement in Britain in the 20th Century.” The PhD will partly be based on the Watson archive
Outside of CAF, Matthew has contributed a co-written chapter (with Kate) titled “(Mis)representing Veganism in Film and Television” for The Routledge Handbook of Vegan Studies (2021). Matthew and Kate were also featured in “Episode 4: Dogs and Monsters” of Martin’s Act at 200 audio documentary. They discussed how Watson co-founded the Vegan Society in World War II. The interview features rare recordings of Watson himself speaking about how he became a vegan.