--- title: LIFE Visits a British Snail-Watching Society in 1946 | Photos description: Consider the snail. Perhaps there's more to this mucus-y, slithering creature than meets the eye. In fact, maybe it can teach us something. canonical: https://time.com/3876078/life-visits-an-english-snail-watching-society/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-02-28T15:52:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:53.593Z og:title: LIFE Visits a British Snail-Watching Society in 1946 | Photos og:description: Consider the snail. Perhaps there's more to this mucus-y, slithering creature than meets the eye. In fact, maybe it can teach us something. og:url: https://time.com/3876078/life-visits-an-english-snail-watching-society/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf70487074e8c379/69884962cd1bbade2b6faa14/11_115868700.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Life Goes to a Snail Watch in England 1946 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: LIFE Visits a British Snail-Watching Society in 1946 | Photos twitter:description: Consider the snail. Perhaps there's more to this mucus-y, slithering creature than meets the eye. In fact, maybe it can teach us something. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcf70487074e8c379/69884962cd1bbade2b6faa14/11_115868700.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Slow Ride: LIFE Visits a British Snail-Watching Society by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 28, 2013 3:52 PM UTC  British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. British Snail-Watching Society, 1946.Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 28, 2013 3:52 PM UTC Consider the snail. Humble, deliberate, primeval, the wee [gastropod](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastropoda) that comes to mind when we hear or see that one, simple word — _snail_ — is seemingly the very last creature about which anyone would or could grow not merely protective, but passionate. After all, seen in a certain light (for that matter, seen in _any_ light) the common snail is an irrelevancy or, if one is a gardener, a pest to be dispatched posthaste. Then again, perhaps we’re not giving the snail its due. Perhaps there’s more to this mucus-y, slithering, boneless lazybones than meets the eye. Perhaps, if we engage in a subtle recalibration of our assumptions about our fellow creatures, we might find that the snail is not only worthy of our attention, but even of something like devotion. Perhaps the mild snail, dilly-dallying its way through life, can teach us something about the . . . Oh, never mind! The fact is, most of us pass our days blissfully unconcerned with what snails — near and far, large and small — might be up to. Most of us, quite frankly, just _don’t care_. But there was once a time, in a land called England, when dozens — nay, scores! — of snail fanciers did care, and struggled to rehabilitate the image of the oft-maligned critters. LIFE magazine photographer Hans Wild visited the intrepid souls of the British Snail-Watching Society in 1946\. This gallery highlights some of the pictures he made. For the story of the society itself, however, it’s probably best to simply quote from the December 2, 1946, issue of LIFE, which really did manage to hit just the right tone when discussing this slippery issue: --- > “” --- --- > “” ---  Kristin Brinckerhoff ponders the selection of marijuana at 3D Cannabis Center in Denver, CO January 02, 2014. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images _The Snail-Watching Society was founded last year as an elaborate family joke by Peter Henniker Heaton, an ex-employee of the Admiralty, after he had extravagantly admired a roadside bank silvered by snails after a rain. The snail, Henniker Heaton declared, can teach man a thing or two because it has solved many of man’s own dilemmas: 1) it carries its house on its back, 2) it makes its own roads by glandular secretion, 3) it takes its time._ --- > “” --- _Already the society has 70 members, a book full of press clippings and correspondence from far parts of the world. Its members write indignant letters to the press protesting such barbaric customs as eating snails, of which there are 40,000 varieties. Best known are the small garden snails of the order_ stylommatophora_, but in Australia there is a variety,_ megalatractus proboscidiferus _Lamarck, whose shell measures two feet. Of the society’s favorite sport, Henniker Heaton says, “When you are used to snail-racing, horse races are over too quickly.”_  British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society's objects of attention, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Member, British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Society archives include these clippings displayed above collection of colored snail shells. Among them is an editorial from the Times about snails." Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Snail anthem is variation on old nursery rhyme about four-and-twenty tailors who went to kill a snail. Here it is played by harpist Catherine Farmer." Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Member, British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Snail- trail stitch is demonstrated by a society member who is expert embroiderer. Stitch is variation of chain stitch in use since 17th century." Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society members, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Society founder, Peter Henniker Heaton, shows his wife how snails crawl up plants where they feed. Non-snail-lovers consider them a garden pest." Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society's objects of attention, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Snails, as they appeared in England in 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society founder Peter Henniker Heaton with snails and a (presumably not hungry) cat, 1946. Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Rare coin, issued by a Worcestershire village during wartime metals shortage in 1790, is prized by snail-watchers because of snail depicted in foreground." Hans Wild—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  British Snail-Watching Society, 1946. 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