page_title: Dugald Semple
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Dugald Semple / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Davies o'the Mill cottage ruins, Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland
context_page_description: Dugald Patterson McDougall Semple was a Scottish advocate of simple living and animal rights, naturalist, prolific author, and fruitarian. He is sometimes credited with co-founding the vegan movement in 1944 without using the term "vegan".
context_section_description: Semple's mother hailed from a farm near Beith, and his father worked as a tailor. He was born in Johnstone near Paisley, Scotland. Dugald won a bursary to Paisley Grammar School and served an apprenticeship as an engineering draughtsman. In 1907, he moved into a tent, and later an old omnibus located on Linwood Moss. In 1916, he was a conscientious objector and thus exempted from military service on condition that he continued lecturing on food economy.
  Dugald Semple, vegan and "Scottish Apostle of the simple life," farmed at Davie's o'the Mill near Beith in North Ayrshire from the 1930s until around 1950, when it was a smallholding. Dugald was a hippy before hippies officially existed and started living in an army tent from 1907. He was sometimes known as the 'Hut Man' from living in his 'hut on wheels' or caravan and therefore probably did not live in the house. He later lived in Fairlie, North Ayrshire. Semple preached self-responsibility and care for others. Curiously for a vegetarian he appears in a photograph of Davie's o'the Mill to be keeping chickens. He regularly appeared on radio programmes, including Out with Romany and Hutman of the BBC. He lived with his wife Cathie in London for two years when he was the secretary of the Vegetarian Society.
  A regular visitor to Ailsa Craig, he was known locally as the 'Bird Man' and was an enthusiast for outdoor living, publishing a book entitled A Free Man's Philosophy. He welcomed walkers and cyclists who often camped on his land.
  In 1963, Dugald detailed his dietary journey:
  I began rather drastically over 50 years ago [~1910] by cutting out not only all meat or flesh foods, but milk, eggs, butter, tea and coffee. Cheese I have never eaten; indeed I hate the very smell of this decayed milk. Next, I adopted a diet of nuts, fruit, cereals and vegetables. On this Edenic fare I lived for some ten years, and found that my health and strength were greatly improved. […] While I was in London (during World War I), I found it necessary to add some dairy products to my meals, but on returning to Scotland I gradually eliminated these again.
  In later life, he lived in a modern cottage and even owned a car.
caption: Davie's o'the Mill ruins in 2011.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E4600", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "E4600v1.1", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:14 23:27:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "2288", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6406", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "17865", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5/833", "EXIF FNumber": "49/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:14 12:27:50", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:14 12:27:50", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "57/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2288", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1712", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6270", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "34", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "5B4668230AE8430683A970F57BB0B34B", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "3830"}