Our Dumb Neighbors - 1870
8/25/24 (updated 12/15/25)“Our Dumb Neighbors” is a 19th‑century children’s book on animals by the Anglican clergyman Thomas Jackson, part of a wider Victorian movement to encourage kindness toward “dumb” (non‑speaking) creatures. It combines natural history, moral instruction, and light storytelling in dialogue form aimed at young readers.Author and contextThomas Jackson was a Church of England clergyman (often styled “Rev. Thomas Jackson” or “Prebendary of St. Paul’s”) who wrote several didactic works for children. His animal books, including “Our Dumb Neighbors” and related titles like “Our Feathered Companions,” circulated in the later 19th century when religious, educational, and animal‑welfare concerns often overlapped.Publication and related works“Our Dumb Neighbors” appears with the descriptive subtitle “Conversations of a father with his children on domestic and other animals,” and was issued as an illustrated volume for family reading. Jackson also used the phrase “Our Dumb Companions” in lectures and publications, indicating that “Our Dumb Neighbors” belongs to a small cluster of his pro‑animal works built around the same theme.Structure and contentThe book is framed as a series of conversations in which a father explains to his children the habits, capacities, and “wonderful” qualities of common domestic and other animals. This dialogic format allows factual information about animal behavior to be blended with moral lessons about gentleness, gratitude, and responsibility toward living creatures.Language and idea of “dumb”The word “dumb” in the title reflects a period usage meaning “unable to speak,” not “stupid,” and is explicitly linked in contemporary commentary to the notion that humans should “speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.” This understanding of “dumb” also appears in kindred 19th‑century animal‑advocacy publications like the American magazine “Our Dumb Animals,” which used precisely that motto.Influence and reception“Our Dumb Neighbors” has been noted in modern scholarship on Victorian animal ethics and religion, including work on Christina Rossetti, who knew Jackson’s animal‑rights lectures. It is cited in late‑19th‑ and early‑20th‑century reading lists for inculcating kindness to animals in children, alongside Jackson’s other animal‑themed books.Source: Perplexity.ai --G. Ly
