Some years ago, my sister bought me gift membership of the RSPB and renews it for me annually. I probably don’t make as much use of it as I could as there are no reserves especially near to me, but I enjoy flicking through the magazine each month and I always participate in the Great British Birdwatch each January. Yet I’ve never given a single thought to the origins of the charity. The RSPB. It just IS!
I recently joined an online event from Kensington and Chelsea libraries – Fashion, Fury, and Feathers: Women’s Fight for Change with Tessa Boase. It was an illuminating talk, and I learned a great deal about millinery in the Victorian age, the cruelty unleashed on numerous species of birds, and…… some incredible women. I guess the mark of a good talk is if it sends you hurtling off to find out more. I did. Go hurtling off to find out more! Tessa Boase’s book Etta Lemon – The Woman Who Saved the Birds was my starting point. So I tried to reserve a copy at my local library but the search came up with a different book – Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather, same book, different title - “a rose by any other name “. The copy, secured and collected, I began reading on International Women’s Day, which seemed like an auspicious day to start the book.
I was hoping to find out more concerning the RSPB and its origins. I did, but I also found out so very much more. Several women were pivotal in shaping the organisation, but very little is known about them - Emily Williamson founded the RSPB over tea in her living room in 1889. But the book looks closely at two lives in parallel, Etta Lemon and Emmeline Pankhurst, two very different women with opposing views and contrasting modus operandi. But it shows that when your temperament, be it the quiet dignity of Etta Lemon or the forceful militance of Mrs Pankhurst, combined with sufficient determination and doggedness can eventually bring about change. Of course Mrs Pankhurst needs little introduction, but I had never heard of Etta Lemon before Ms. Boase’s talk, let alone the instrumental part she played in creating the RSPB.
In an accessible narrative, not bogged down by academic jargon and padding, the book, gives us a detailed account of the millinery industry of the 19th century, the lives of its workers from those women and children, who “willowed” ostrich plumes by hand, to the feather manufacturers of the East End. The research is thorough and impeccable. Running alongside this scenario is the Suffragette movement and the development of anti suffrage which you might determine to have little to do with millinery and the RSPB, except the book is also about women and the transformation of a society, about conservation and its legacy.
Today, we are appalled at the procuring of egret plumes, how the young birds are left to starve after the murder of the parent birds for their feathers. So I’m glad to know of Etta Lemon’s single-mindedness and commitment to those birds who have the most beautiful voices but not necessarily those we can comprehend if they scream in pain and outrage. They need voices like Etta’s to heighten public consciousness. Reading more about her shows interests and causes that extended beyond ornithology.
The book also made me wonder how many other people there are in history who have quietly done great things but have gone largely unnoticed? It’s a curious world we live in. Today, social media is redolent with “influencers” posting eye-catching photos and vibrant videos. One sometimes gets the sense that they’re trying to outdo each other instead of focusing on a single issue. My guess is they actually do very little in the way of meaningful influence. But it made me wonder if time could be manipulated, how Etta Lemon and Emmeline Pankhurst would have utilised social media? Mrs Pankhurst would maybe have created hard-hitting reels and videos on TikTok and Instagram. Etta Lemon would have posted meaningful tweets with photos of birds on Twitter!!
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