William Horsell

William Horsell (31 March 1807 – 23 December 1863) was an English vegetarian activist, publisher, editor, and hydrotherapist who played a prominent role in several nineteenth-century reform movements, including temperance, phrenology, and early veganism. He was instrumental in the founding of the Vegetarian Society in 1847 and served as its first secretary. Based in London, Horsell edited the Society's early journal, the Truth-Tester, later renamed The Vegetarian Advocate, and operated a hydropathic infirmary in Ramsgate, described as the first vegetarian hospital in Britain.

He published a wide range of literature on diet, health, and spiritualism, including Cholera Prevented by the Adoption of a Vegetarian Diet (1849), The Vegetarian Armed at All Points (1856), and The Science of Cooking Vegetarian Food (1856), as well as the first known vegan cookbook, Asenath Nicholson's Kitchen Philosophy for Vegetarians (1849). His wife, Elizabeth, was also a vegetarian and author of the vegan cookbook, The Penny Domestic Assistant and Guide to Vegetarian Cookery, which he published. In his later years, Horsell withdrew from public life and died of a fever in 1863 while on an anti-slavery mission to West Africa.