Hannah assumed that only the female swan would sit on the nest – but then she saw them swapping nest duties, ‘giving each other a break. Feathers were among the luxury items whose import was banned from February 1917 for the duration of the First World War. When the secretary of the RSPB, Linda Gardiner, retired in 1935, there was a proposal to replace her with a man, apparently to give the society greater acceptability. Etta was soon sent to Hill House boarding school in Belstead, Suffolk, run by Maria Umphelby—another evangelical Christian—and remained there until she was 16.

Etta’s long battle against ‘murderous millinery’ triumphed with the Plumage Act of 1921 – but her legacy has been eclipsed by the more glamorous campaign for the vote, led by the elegantly plumed Emmeline Pankhurst. Also regarding the hats, I knew about hats with feathers but didn’t realise they had entire wings or even birds.And yet, as with Emily Williamson, her name has yet to take its place in the conservation narrative. Unfortunately we cannot offer a refund on custom prints unless they are faulty or we have made a mistake. And it wasn’t just feathers but whole wings or even whole birds affixed to hats in what would certainly look grotesque to us today but was the height of fashion in its day. Winifred, Duchess of Portland, animal rights advocate, and vegetarian, was RSPB president to her death in 1954. She hatched the novel idea of selling bird boxes and bird seed to the British – first imported from Germany, then produced in-house.

Lemon died at Redhill on 8 July 1953 aged 92, and was buried next to her husband at St Mary's Church Cemetery, Reigate. c] At church she would see women who were wearing feathered hats, and send them a note explaining how birds were killed to make them. This redoubtable personality, a woman not afraid to swim against the current, renowned for her public speaking and ‘masculine’ dominance of the field – how could she not get behind the ultimate battle for equality? A ladies’ tea party may not be viewed too seriously but at a time when women lacked places to meet, two sets of ladies Emily Williamson with her Society for the Protection of Birds in Manchester, and Eliza Phillips with her Fur, Fin and Feather Folk in Croydon (of which Etta Lemon was a part) began their campaigns.The more I got to know Etta, the more I found myself wondering if she was perhaps neuro-diverse, like eco campaigners Greta and Chris Packham.

Also, to tell the truth, I didn’t quite know the difference between suffragettes and suffragists before reading this either). Happily, since my book’s publication, Etta Lemon and co-founder Emily Williamson are being propelled into the spotlight. Her name is carved simply beneath her husband’s, and her extraordinary contribution to the protection of birdlife goes unmentioned. Etta Lemon ran the long eco-campaign against the feather trade with single-minded tenacity, triumphing with the Plumage Act of 1921. Teetotaler, vegetarian and a supporter of many humanitarian causes, she was important to the society because of her aristocratic connections.She was never much of a scientific ornithologist,” wrote the great birder James Fisher, looking back on her achievements. She noticed how they would stand up and look tenderly at their eggs, using their beaks to rearrange them. Etta Lemon and her fellow early conservationists, equally determined, wanting to halt the massive destruction of birds caused by the feather trade. The SPB had its own office in London by 1897, and sent more than 16,000 letters and 50,000 leaflets; it had 20,000 members by the following year. To these hundreds of poor young women, feathers represented not a living thing (in fact, few had ever had any real contact with birds having lived in the city all of their lives), but certainly a living, ready money (feathers stolen at work), and a symbol of respectability and acceptance.

Thank you 🙂 Yes, reading about the extent of the practice or rather industry was shocking for me as well, as I didn’t realise just how bad it was either. But politics and compromise were very much a part of the process, for the issue of game birds raised by member Julia Andrews was shut down and Miss Andrews even removed, with the society declaring that its focus would remain the millinery trade. She suddenly didn't seem so modern, or quite so relatable to a 21st century reader (especially this one!I found it astonishing she hadn’t been remembered by the charity she built for half a century, 1889-1939. As a young Victorian woman, Etta wrote militant letters to church-going ladies wearing feathered hats. One estimate that the author mentions is by Frank Chapman which was 5 million birds killed annually in America alone.