Robert Semple (activist)
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Robert Semple | |
|---|---|
 Portrait from Fifty Years of Food Reform (1898) | |
| Born | 1841 |
| Died | 1920 (aged 79) |
| Occupations | Poet, activist |
Robert Semple (1841–1920) was a Scottish poet and activist for temperance and vegetarianism. He was president of the Irish Vegetarian Union.
Semple was born in Paisley to a textile family.[1] He was the son of Isabella Smith and James Semple.[2] As a young boy, Semple worked as an assistant to a handloom weaver and in 1861 became a pattern designer. In 1871, he was foreman of a winding department in a textile factory.[1] Semple became teetotal in 1869 and joined the International Organisation of Good Templars in 1870.[3]
He was temperance lecturer in the 1870s and was a member of the Paisley Total Abstinence Society.[1] In 1881, he lectured throughout the Scottish Highlands.[1] He moved to Belfast in 1883 as a lecturer for the Irish Temperance League.[4] He worked with the Hibernian Band of Hope Union in Dublin for several years and was elected grand secretary of the Good Templar Order of Ireland in 1893.[1][4][3] He was editor of The Irish Templar.[3] Semple was a poet and in 1884 published a collection of temperance songs, Semple's Temperance Solos.[2] His wife was also active in the temperance movement; she died in 1902.[5]
Semple died at his residence in Belfast, aged 79.[4] An obituary stated that "the temperance cause in Ireland has lost a staunch and faithful advocate".[6]