The Ideal Publishing Union was a London-based publisher associated with the temperance and vegetarianism movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was funded by Arnold Hills and incorporated in 1894 to acquire The Vegetarian (a weekly newspaper) and The Vegetarian Review (a quarterly magazine), and to launch the humorous illustrated monthly The Merry-go-Round. Its directors included Hills (chairman), Josiah Oldfield, and Charles W. Forward (managing director). The company operated from London addresses including Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street and 33 Paternoster Row, where it was also connected with the National Temperance Publication Depot. It was dissolved on 16 November 1906.
The creation of The Ideal Publishing Union was funded by the temperance and vegetarianism activist Arnold Hills. The company was originally based at Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, London and later 33 Paternoster Row, London.
A February 1894 notice in The Vegetarian Messenger reported that the company had been incorporated to acquire The Vegetarian (a weekly newspaper) and The Vegetarian Review (a quarterly magazine), together with the associated printing and publishing business, and to establish a new humorous illustrated monthly magazine, The Merry-go-Round. The notice named Hills (chairman), Josiah Oldfield, and Charles W. Forward (managing director) as directors.
An 1898 notice in The Bookseller reported that the National Temperance League transferred its interest in the depot at 33 Paternoster Row, to the Ideal Publishing Union, and that the business would continue under the joint title The National Temperance Publication Depot (Ideal Publishing Union Limited). It added that H. J. Osborn would manage the depot, with no immediate changes to its operations, and that the existing manager, Thomas Rowe, would remain for some months.
The company was dissolved on 16 November 1906.
The Ideal Publishing Union published literature connected with temperance and vegetarianism. Publications issued included Charles W. Forward's Fifty Years of Food Reform (1898), a history of the British vegetarian movement. It also published works by the physician and reformer Josiah Oldfield.
Charles W. Forward edited the 12-volume Vegetarian Jubilee Library series, issued from 1897 to 1900 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vegetarian Society in 1897, intended to make leading vegetarian works widely accessible.