INSPIRING STORY OF TENACIOUS WOMAN WHO CAMPAIGNED TO SAVE BIRDS FROM SLAUGHTER

                                                  

DURING media coverage - in the Press and on TV - of this week's Royal Ascot race meeting, check out the  ladies' hats,  many of which will be adorned with feathers.

The milliners who made them would insist  the feathers have not been taken from exotic birds slaughtered in the wild but are dyed specimens taken from domestically reared 'barnyard' species such as geese, ducks, turkeys  or perhaps ostriches.

But in a sense, these contemporary feather-adorned head coverings are a lingering legacy of the plume trade that flourished in the Victorian and Edwardian eras as fashion-conscious women vied to wear the most exotically-adorned millinery.

The more elaborate the colour and patterning of the feathers on the hat, the higher the status of the woman who wore it.  

The extent of this lucrative international trade has been well documented by  former Sunday Telegraph  executive journalist Tessa Boase, now an author, in her excellent writings and talks on the subject.

It was three years ago that saw the publication of Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather: Fashion, Fury and Feminism - Women's Fight for Change.

Now the same volume  has been reissued in paperback with a brighter new cover and a more digestible  title - Etta Lemon, The Woman Who Saved The Birds.

When Ms Boase  gave a talk about her book at the 2019 Birdfair festival, one member of the audience, who had read it, made her blush by describing her work (not inaccurately) as "a cross between Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie - only better!"

In her narrative, the author, who lives in Hastings on the Sussex Coast,  takes a strongly feminist line, claiming that it was women such as Surrey-based Etta Lemon  who pioneered the campaign to ban a trade which was desperately cruel to birds, millions of them seized as they nested, and which brought many species, such as egrets and great crested grebes, to the brink of extinction.

It is true these women were important, not least because they pioneered the creation of the  outspoken  Society for the Protection  - later to become the rather less hard-hitting (some would say docile) RSPB. 

Ms Boase has written a great book but she has not told the full story of the campaign to safeguard birds which dates back many years before Etta and sisterhood allies such as  Emily Williamson and Eliza Phillips became active.

More than half-a-century earlier, there had been a campaign, ultimately successful, to end the slaughter of sea birds.

Because of the precious whiteness of their feathers, kittiwakes, gannets and terns were particularly targeted - notably off Flamborough Head in Yorkshire and around the Isle of Wight.

The activities were horrific - birds that had not died from their gunshot wounds would be pulled from the sea, thence to have their wings plucked off before being thrown back into the sea to await further pain, terror and death.

The disgusting practice was called out by a Lincolnshire ornithologist, John Cordeaux, a Bridlington rector and  others, leading to the Seabirds Preservation Act of 1869.

This set a precedent for bird protection legislation - one which doubtless provided inspiration to  Etta and  her fellow-campaigners.

But this story has been told elsewhere.

Ms Boase's unerring focus is on the campaign to end the plumage trade - "murderous millinery" as it was dubbed - and the courage and determination  of the women who battled on.

They kept banging the drum  despite the opposition both of those who were its commercial beneficiaries and many serious ornithologists, including churchman the Rev Francis Morris, who, according to the author, deemed "women's emotional relationship with birds as backward, non-scientific and unserious".

Ultimately, Etta won. After many parliamentary setbacks, legislation was passed. This year - July 1 - is the centenary of Royal assent being given to the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act of 1921.

The measure came into force in April the following year.

Was it a cause for celebration? Not really.

Writes Ms Boase: "Etta knew in her heart of hearts that the Act lacked teeth - to make it a crime to import exotic plumage and yet perfectly legal to sell and wear it seemed a travesty."

On the plus side, the campaign had changed public attitudes to exploitation of wild birds for the sake of adorning hats

Over the next 100 years, feathers in hats - like fur coats - became deeply unfashionable.

But will the pendulum swing the other way? In photographs taken at society events such as Royal weddings, look at the hats. 

Feathers - perhaps some taken from exotic wild birds -  might just be making a comeback. . .

* Etta Lemon - The Woman Who Saved The Birds is published (£9.99) by Aurum Books and is available from bookshops and online outlets.

* An interview with Tessa Boase is featured in the May 27, 2019, edition of The Wryneck blog.