FASHION, FEATHERS AND ANIMAL RIGHTS
The Mattingley photographs and the fight for the protection of birds
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In this article, we highlight an extraordinary set of photographs, taken in Australia over 100 years ago, which played a significant role in international efforts to achieve legislative protection of wild birds. The photographs surfaced at the height of a vigorous campaign, on both sides of the Atlantic, which had been prompted by the phenomenal growth in the “plumage trade” – the use of bird feathers and other body parts in women’s hats and clothing.
While this fashion mainly blossomed in the closing years of the 19th century, its roots go back thousands of years, to the general attitudes held about animal protection in the Western world. So it is there that our story must start. |
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More Journal articles on protests ...and on birds.: --------------------------------------------- |
General attitudes to animals in the West
Humans have long had complex and often inconsistent attitudes to the welfare of other animals (and even each other). In Western society, significant concerns about animal welfare have generally been slow to develop. According to traditional Christian beliefs, particularly in the Old Testament, it was at least recognised that appropriate care for domesticated or breeding animals could be justified as being in the commercial interests of their owners [1]. However, the overriding consideration was that humans had been given dominion “over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”[2]. These “lower order” animals were generally considered to lack rationality (or sometimes even sentience) and basically existed for the convenience, exploitation and pleasure of humans.
While universally accepting this hierarchical model, later Christian writers presented mixed views about its practical implications. In his City of God, 4th century scholar St Augustine interpreted the Biblical incident of the Gadarene swine – in which Jesus sent devils into a herd of pigs, forcing them drown themselves in the sea – as showing that “there are no common rights between us and the beasts and trees”; and that “Christ himself shows that to refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of plants is the height of superstition”. Similarly, the 13C philosopher Thomas Aquinas stated that cruelty to animals was not wrong in itself, and that it should only be condemned if it encouraged cruelty to humans [3]. On the other hand, St Francis of Assisi famously argued that animals were worthy of human kindness because of their status as fellow creatures of God.
By the 18th century, various notables were calling for a more compassionate approach [4], with individual preachers, moralists and philosophers urging that greater attention be paid to animals’ concerns. They were joined by writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Barbauld (see our article Science becomes Art), Byron, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth and Robert Burns.
The satirist Hogarth also criticised the continuing abuses with his Four Stages of Cruelty, suggesting that cruelty to animals, such as in cock throwing, was the first stage in the development of violent criminals.
While universally accepting this hierarchical model, later Christian writers presented mixed views about its practical implications. In his City of God, 4th century scholar St Augustine interpreted the Biblical incident of the Gadarene swine – in which Jesus sent devils into a herd of pigs, forcing them drown themselves in the sea – as showing that “there are no common rights between us and the beasts and trees”; and that “Christ himself shows that to refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of plants is the height of superstition”. Similarly, the 13C philosopher Thomas Aquinas stated that cruelty to animals was not wrong in itself, and that it should only be condemned if it encouraged cruelty to humans [3]. On the other hand, St Francis of Assisi famously argued that animals were worthy of human kindness because of their status as fellow creatures of God.
By the 18th century, various notables were calling for a more compassionate approach [4], with individual preachers, moralists and philosophers urging that greater attention be paid to animals’ concerns. They were joined by writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Anna Barbauld (see our article Science becomes Art), Byron, Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth and Robert Burns.
The satirist Hogarth also criticised the continuing abuses with his Four Stages of Cruelty, suggesting that cruelty to animals, such as in cock throwing, was the first stage in the development of violent criminals.
Fig 1: Hogarth. The Four Stages of Cruelty: Stage 1, physical abuse of animals (1751)
Within the larger population, however, such calls received only limited acceptance, and generally uncaring attitudes to animals continued into the 19th century [5]. While the British Parliament passed an 1822 Bill to “prevent the cruel treatment of cattle” – with a sharp eye on their commercial value -- other Bills to prevent bullbaiting or cruelty to horses, asses or oxen met with little success. Later efforts to outlaw dogfights and bullbaiting also failed, prompting the formation of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (1824) [6]. Most of these animal tortures were finally outlawed by the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 but this did not apply to wild animals. Birds, which for many centuries had been hunted for food or “sport”, were still quite literally in the firing line.
Feathered hats and the plumage trade
The unprotected position of wild birds assumed special significance in the light of an extraordinary development in the latter part of the 19th century. This was the creation of the creation of a fashion industry, not limited to the upper classes, but across a wider spectrum of society. One notable aspect of this was the extensive use of bird feathers in ladies’ fashions, particularly their hats. In fact, not just feathers, but also wings, heads and even entire bodies of birds became extremely popular [7]. Hats crowned by the feathers of the great crested grebe [see our article on Carpaccio], or gowns with several dead robins sewn onto the skirt were considered very chic.
The use of feathers as a fashion accessory was of course not new –ostentatiously plumed hats had been worn by the fashionable wealthy back in the 18th century (Fig 2), and they had become a symbol of exotic beauty. However, what developed in the late 19th century, in cities such as Paris (the manufacturing centre), London (the biggest market) and New York, was an explosive growth in this fashion, crossing class and geographical boundaries, on a scale which today seems almost inconceivable. This change was driven by a wide range of factors – the economic boom resulting from the Industrial Revolution, the growth of department stores, the proliferation of ready-to-wear garments, catalogue-based mail order, the birth of fashion weeklies, and the rise of fashion houses and personalities.
The use of feathers as a fashion accessory was of course not new –ostentatiously plumed hats had been worn by the fashionable wealthy back in the 18th century (Fig 2), and they had become a symbol of exotic beauty. However, what developed in the late 19th century, in cities such as Paris (the manufacturing centre), London (the biggest market) and New York, was an explosive growth in this fashion, crossing class and geographical boundaries, on a scale which today seems almost inconceivable. This change was driven by a wide range of factors – the economic boom resulting from the Industrial Revolution, the growth of department stores, the proliferation of ready-to-wear garments, catalogue-based mail order, the birth of fashion weeklies, and the rise of fashion houses and personalities.
Fig 2: Thomas Gainsborough, Portrait of Duchess of Devonshire, with black plumed hat (1787). Her excesses of millinery were legendary (Moore-Colyer, op cit at 57)
Initially, the feathers were generally obtained locally. Seabirds were especially in demand. As London and provincial dealers offered one shilling each for the wings of “white gulls”, excursion trains took hordes of beer-swilling plumage hunters with their rook rifles from London to the killing grounds [8]. The needlessly appalling cruelty with which these activities were carried out prompted Alfred Newton, Professor of Zoology at Cambridge, to declare that any woman who wore seabird plumes bore “the murderer’s brand up on their forehead”. Eventually the Seabirds Protection Act 1869 imposed a closed season for 33 species of seabirds, while the Wild Birds Protection Act 1880 provided a nesting closed season for all species of birds in the UK.
But this did nothing to halt the carnage of tropical and sub-tropical birds. As supply struggled to keep up with demand, extraordinary numbers of birds were “harvested” from all round the world, including Australia, India, Trinidad and North and South America. Killing methods became easier with developments in weapons – the new, almost noiseless forms of rifle, for example, enabled whole rookeries to be wiped out in the vast breeding grounds of Florida [9].
The wastefulness of the whole procedure was particularly striking ~ in the case of egrets alone, six birds needed to be killed to yield just one ounce of their desirable long gauzy plumes (“aigrettes”) which grew during the breeding season. In a typical nine-month period it was reported that four London feather firms sold over 20.000 ounces of aigrettes, equivalent to more than 120,000 egrets. Literally millions of birds were killed annually and thousands of tons of feathers were imported to feed the demands of the fashion industry [10].
But this did nothing to halt the carnage of tropical and sub-tropical birds. As supply struggled to keep up with demand, extraordinary numbers of birds were “harvested” from all round the world, including Australia, India, Trinidad and North and South America. Killing methods became easier with developments in weapons – the new, almost noiseless forms of rifle, for example, enabled whole rookeries to be wiped out in the vast breeding grounds of Florida [9].
The wastefulness of the whole procedure was particularly striking ~ in the case of egrets alone, six birds needed to be killed to yield just one ounce of their desirable long gauzy plumes (“aigrettes”) which grew during the breeding season. In a typical nine-month period it was reported that four London feather firms sold over 20.000 ounces of aigrettes, equivalent to more than 120,000 egrets. Literally millions of birds were killed annually and thousands of tons of feathers were imported to feed the demands of the fashion industry [10].
Fig 3: 1600 Hummingbird skins at 2 cents each. Part of lot purchased by the Zoological Society at the Regular Quarterly London Millinery Feather Sale, August, 1912: http://fashioningfeathers.info/murderous-millinery/
This feather market was no longer confined to the wealthy. In London, for example, you could buy market baskets full of orioles, kingfishers and humming birds for a few pence. Whole parrots were 25 cents in New York [11]. Both rich and poor could scour the markets of London, collecting parts from all varieties of exotic birds for next to nothing. Harpers Bazaar was exaggerating, but understandably so, when it noted in 1897, “that there should be an owl or ostrich left with a single feather hardly seems possible”.
Fig 4: Hat by Alphonsine, October 1911 issue of Les Modes: http://theartofdress.org/2015/06/24/murderous-millinery-a-brief-look-at-the-fashion-for-feathered-hats-in-the-early-20th-century/
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Fig 5: A feathered hat by Alphonsine, June 1910 issue of Les Modes: http://theartofdress.org/2015/06/24/murderous-millinery-a-brief-look-at-the-fashion-for-feathered-hats-in-the-early-20th-century/
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Abolitionists versus defenders
During this period, attitudes toward animals had been undergoing some reappraisal. The more sympathetic ideas raised in the Enlightenment era had become reinforced by further advances in scientific knowledge in areas such as geology, astronomy and evolutionary biology. For a significant part of the population, this had the effect of breaking down traditional beliefs about humanity’s claim to be at the centre of an unchanging universe (see our article on time). The blatant mass slaughter, of which ostentatious reminders were regularly seen parading in the street, would provide an interesting test of this developing attitude.
One vital development was the formation of bird protection groups on both sides of the Atlantic – in the United States, The Society for the Protection of Birds started in 1891, and in Britain, the Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB) was formed in 1889 (it became a “Royal” Society in 1904). The British group’s main immediate aim was to “discourage the wanton destruction of birds,” and members pledged to “refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for the purposes of food.” By the end of its first year, it had over 5,000 members. Membership continued to grow at a rapid rate in subsequent years and included many high-profile campaigners.
Defenders of the plumage trade -- the spokesmen of business interests, sporting shooters, chambers of commerce and the fashion industry [12] – justified their position on various grounds. There was of course the important fact that the trade had provided substantial opportunities for employment to the poor and especially to women themselves. In 1889, in London and Paris, over 8,000 women were employed in the millinery trade, and women similarly dominated the millinery workforce in New York. Many of the underemployed rural poor had also benefited from trapping, liming, shooting, bludgeoning or poisoning birds to provide raw materials for the milliner [13].
Some defenders of the trade also argued that the feathers of especially popular species such as egrets were naturally moulted, and that they were simply being collected from the ground beneath the birds’ nesting trees. This was untrue. Collection in this way on the scale required would have necessitated a virtual snowstorm of feathers to be perpetually raining down from above. Birds do not typically moult while breeding and, in any event, moulted feathers are old and rarely in the perfect condition that fashion demanded. In fact, of course, large scale harvesting almost inevitably meant the violent death of the birds involved, on a mass scale, and typically in the most brutal and wasteful of ways [14].
Defenders also raised the practical argument that England should not act alone, as the market would simply just switch to their competitors. And finally it was argued that, in any event, Parliament had far more pressing business to attend to – “the lives of human beings and their sustenance are more important than the lives of birds, 98% of which are never seen by the eyes of men because they are in the swamps and forests of foreign countries” [15].
Abolitionists were similarly motivated by a variety of considerations. Many were simply opposed on the grounds of the cruelty being inflicted on the birds, or the utter frivolity of the uses to which the feathers were being put. Others argued that the size of the slaughter would eventually wipe out certain bird populations. The more nuanced pointed out that artificially altering the natural distribution and numbers of bird populations would upset the ecological balance, arguing (for example) that the removal of egrets along the Yangtze River in China had led to substantial increased in insect damage [16].
However, forcing change to the status quo was an uphill task. As a group of concerned women wrote to The Times in 1897, so long as royalty and the elite wore feathers, birds would continue to be hunted [17]. In addition, although there was a groundswell of opposition, it was bedevilled by the lack of concrete evidence of the scope of the trade, the way it was conducted and extent to which particular species were genuinely under threat. Understandably, both sides of the debate were not immune from exaggeration.
One vital development was the formation of bird protection groups on both sides of the Atlantic – in the United States, The Society for the Protection of Birds started in 1891, and in Britain, the Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB) was formed in 1889 (it became a “Royal” Society in 1904). The British group’s main immediate aim was to “discourage the wanton destruction of birds,” and members pledged to “refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for the purposes of food.” By the end of its first year, it had over 5,000 members. Membership continued to grow at a rapid rate in subsequent years and included many high-profile campaigners.
Defenders of the plumage trade -- the spokesmen of business interests, sporting shooters, chambers of commerce and the fashion industry [12] – justified their position on various grounds. There was of course the important fact that the trade had provided substantial opportunities for employment to the poor and especially to women themselves. In 1889, in London and Paris, over 8,000 women were employed in the millinery trade, and women similarly dominated the millinery workforce in New York. Many of the underemployed rural poor had also benefited from trapping, liming, shooting, bludgeoning or poisoning birds to provide raw materials for the milliner [13].
Some defenders of the trade also argued that the feathers of especially popular species such as egrets were naturally moulted, and that they were simply being collected from the ground beneath the birds’ nesting trees. This was untrue. Collection in this way on the scale required would have necessitated a virtual snowstorm of feathers to be perpetually raining down from above. Birds do not typically moult while breeding and, in any event, moulted feathers are old and rarely in the perfect condition that fashion demanded. In fact, of course, large scale harvesting almost inevitably meant the violent death of the birds involved, on a mass scale, and typically in the most brutal and wasteful of ways [14].
Defenders also raised the practical argument that England should not act alone, as the market would simply just switch to their competitors. And finally it was argued that, in any event, Parliament had far more pressing business to attend to – “the lives of human beings and their sustenance are more important than the lives of birds, 98% of which are never seen by the eyes of men because they are in the swamps and forests of foreign countries” [15].
Abolitionists were similarly motivated by a variety of considerations. Many were simply opposed on the grounds of the cruelty being inflicted on the birds, or the utter frivolity of the uses to which the feathers were being put. Others argued that the size of the slaughter would eventually wipe out certain bird populations. The more nuanced pointed out that artificially altering the natural distribution and numbers of bird populations would upset the ecological balance, arguing (for example) that the removal of egrets along the Yangtze River in China had led to substantial increased in insect damage [16].
However, forcing change to the status quo was an uphill task. As a group of concerned women wrote to The Times in 1897, so long as royalty and the elite wore feathers, birds would continue to be hunted [17]. In addition, although there was a groundswell of opposition, it was bedevilled by the lack of concrete evidence of the scope of the trade, the way it was conducted and extent to which particular species were genuinely under threat. Understandably, both sides of the debate were not immune from exaggeration.
Mixed attitudes to role of women
One unusual aspect of the abolitionists’ campaign was that although women were a major force in it, they also formed the vast majority of those responsible for adopting the fashion in the first place. Eleanour Vere Boyle, who had campaigned against the wearing of exotic feathers since the 1870s, was eventually “forced to the conclusion that where fashion is concerned, the world of women are utterly and entirely callous and blind to every consideration excepting their own selfish vanity” [18]. Similarly critical views of the attitudes of feather-adorned women were common among many other women in the abolitionist cause, who felt responsible for trying to reform their sisters [19].
The SPB President himself, WH Hudson, painted women as the “bird-enemy” and sought to persuade them to refrain from wearing feathered fashions by arguing they would never attract a mate: “No man who has given any thought to the subject, who has any love of nature in his soul, can see a woman decorated with dead birds, or their wings, or nuptial plumes, without a feeling of repugnance for the wearer, however beautiful or charming she may be” [20].
Similarly, after one particular setback in the campaign, one prominent supporter complained, “What does one expect? [The birds] have to be shot in parenthood for child-bearing women to flaunt the symbols of it, and, as Mr Hudson says, one bird shot for its plumage means ten other deadly wounds and the starvation of the young. But what do women care? Look at Regent Street this morning!” [21].
George Bernard Shaw revealingly complained about a woman who sat down in front of him at the Opera in these terms: “[T]his lady, who had very black hair, had stuck over her right ear the pitiable corpse of a large white bird, which looked exactly if someone had killed it by stamping on the beast, and then nailed it to the lady's temple, which was presumably of sufficient solidity to bear the operation. I am not, I hope, a morbidly squeamish person; but the spectacle sickened me. I presume that if I had presented myself at the doors with a dead snake round my neck, a collection of black beetles pinned to my shirtfront, and a grouse in my hair, I should have been refused admission. Why, then is a woman to be allowed to commit such a public outrage? [22].
Virginia Woolf restored some balance to the issue. While conceding that part of the problem lay with unthinking, self-indulgent women of fashion – the “Lady So-and-So” who wears a “lemon coloured egret in her hair” – she made the telling point that it was men who were the hunters and merchants that turned killing into a money-making commodity, and it was an all-male Parliament which had failed to pass corrective legislation [23].
The SPB President himself, WH Hudson, painted women as the “bird-enemy” and sought to persuade them to refrain from wearing feathered fashions by arguing they would never attract a mate: “No man who has given any thought to the subject, who has any love of nature in his soul, can see a woman decorated with dead birds, or their wings, or nuptial plumes, without a feeling of repugnance for the wearer, however beautiful or charming she may be” [20].
Similarly, after one particular setback in the campaign, one prominent supporter complained, “What does one expect? [The birds] have to be shot in parenthood for child-bearing women to flaunt the symbols of it, and, as Mr Hudson says, one bird shot for its plumage means ten other deadly wounds and the starvation of the young. But what do women care? Look at Regent Street this morning!” [21].
George Bernard Shaw revealingly complained about a woman who sat down in front of him at the Opera in these terms: “[T]his lady, who had very black hair, had stuck over her right ear the pitiable corpse of a large white bird, which looked exactly if someone had killed it by stamping on the beast, and then nailed it to the lady's temple, which was presumably of sufficient solidity to bear the operation. I am not, I hope, a morbidly squeamish person; but the spectacle sickened me. I presume that if I had presented myself at the doors with a dead snake round my neck, a collection of black beetles pinned to my shirtfront, and a grouse in my hair, I should have been refused admission. Why, then is a woman to be allowed to commit such a public outrage? [22].
Virginia Woolf restored some balance to the issue. While conceding that part of the problem lay with unthinking, self-indulgent women of fashion – the “Lady So-and-So” who wears a “lemon coloured egret in her hair” – she made the telling point that it was men who were the hunters and merchants that turned killing into a money-making commodity, and it was an all-male Parliament which had failed to pass corrective legislation [23].
Role of artists and images
One important contribution to the opposition to the feather trade came from cultural circles. Supportive writers included John Ruskin, Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and John Galsworthy [24]. Artists also played a highly significant role. The satirical magazine Punch published cartoons such as A Bird of Prey (Fig 6), which portrays a feathered women of fashion as a winged harpy.
Fig 6: Linley Sambourne, A Bird of Prey, Punch, 14 May 1892
Similarly a cartoon titled The Extinction of Species, with its alternative title “the fashion plate lady without mercy and the egrets”, shows a lady standing in an egret rookery, wearing an extravagantly-decorated hat, and carrying an even larger picture hat that features an entire dead egret. The Westminster Gazette published A Killing Hat (Fig 7), showing a simpering lady wearing a hat bizarrely adorned with an owl, assorted feathers and a pair of stork legs. The cartoon was accompanied by the following piece of doggerel:
I have found out a gift for my fair –
A pair of stork legs – think of that!
If they do look absurd
That’s the fault of the bird
Not to grow legs more fit for a hat
I have found out a gift for my fair –
A pair of stork legs – think of that!
If they do look absurd
That’s the fault of the bird
Not to grow legs more fit for a hat
Fig 7: “A Killing Hat”. Westminster Gazette, July 1901
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Fig 8: GF Watts, A Dedication, 1898-9.
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Among more “serious” artists, a particularly striking contribution was made by GF Watts’ in works such as A Dedication (Fig 8). Watts made his intentions clear with the subtitle “To those who love the beautiful and mourn over the senseless and cruel destruction of bird life and beauty”.
Watts was optimistic about the power of appropriate images to influence public opinion. He stated, rather hopefully, that “it is but reasonable to expect that such application of design and industry would bring about the abolition of the barbarous and abominable practice of destroying myriads of exquisite birds. A whole creation of loveliness is in danger of being swept from off the face of the earth, for the object of sticking stuffed specimens about wearing apparel …[an] effect more grotesque than charming” [25].
His painting shows an angel mourning over the colourful feathers and remains of butchered birds which lie strewn on the altar like sacrifices. The angel’s own wings reflect her identity with the birds, her cloak reflects their exotic colours, and her purity suggests their innocence. A red setting sun suggests an approaching end, and the presence of the engraved satyr hints that evil has been done. In effect, Watts was implying that God too was affronted by the excesses of the trade.
The painting was extensively reproduced and used in publicity by the SPB. But, as one might expect, not everyone was impressed. An 1899 review in The Times, which still probably reflected widespread views on the topic, ridiculed the painting as a fuss about nothing. It claimed that ”the ladies who wear feathers in their hats do not take their act so seriously as Mr. Watts does, and … some of them will only smile when they find a great artist taking the trouble to paint a majestic angel weeping — over what? Over a shelfful of the wings of birds! It is a little startling to read so severe a sermon, and from such a quarter, over an offence which well-meaning people commit in all unconsciousness” [26].
Watts was optimistic about the power of appropriate images to influence public opinion. He stated, rather hopefully, that “it is but reasonable to expect that such application of design and industry would bring about the abolition of the barbarous and abominable practice of destroying myriads of exquisite birds. A whole creation of loveliness is in danger of being swept from off the face of the earth, for the object of sticking stuffed specimens about wearing apparel …[an] effect more grotesque than charming” [25].
His painting shows an angel mourning over the colourful feathers and remains of butchered birds which lie strewn on the altar like sacrifices. The angel’s own wings reflect her identity with the birds, her cloak reflects their exotic colours, and her purity suggests their innocence. A red setting sun suggests an approaching end, and the presence of the engraved satyr hints that evil has been done. In effect, Watts was implying that God too was affronted by the excesses of the trade.
The painting was extensively reproduced and used in publicity by the SPB. But, as one might expect, not everyone was impressed. An 1899 review in The Times, which still probably reflected widespread views on the topic, ridiculed the painting as a fuss about nothing. It claimed that ”the ladies who wear feathers in their hats do not take their act so seriously as Mr. Watts does, and … some of them will only smile when they find a great artist taking the trouble to paint a majestic angel weeping — over what? Over a shelfful of the wings of birds! It is a little startling to read so severe a sermon, and from such a quarter, over an offence which well-meaning people commit in all unconsciousness” [26].
Mattingley and the Mathoura egrets
Unexpectedly, however, perhaps one of the greatest image-based impacts was produced by a series of photographs taken on the other side of the world.
Mathoura is a tiny settlement on the banks of the Murray River in New South Wales. It has exceptional wetlands which support an extraordinary number of birds such as ibis, herons, spoonbills and egrets. Back in 1906, a keen bushman, photographer and proto-conservationist named Arthur Mattingley spent ten days camping there, at the major egret hatchery in the St Helena swamp. Impressed by what he had seen, he decided to return a month later so he could photograph egrets feeding their newly-hatched chicks. But as he and his companion returned to the hatchery, they were greeted by a sickening sight:
“We could see some large patches of white, either floating in the air or reclining on the fallen trees in the vicinity of the egrets' rookery... There, strewn on the floating water-weed, and also on adjacent logs, were at least 50 carcasses of large White and smaller Plumed Egrets—nearly one third of the rookery, perhaps more—the birds having been shot off their nests containing young. What a holocaust! Plundered for their plumes. What a monument of human callousness! There were 50 birds ruthlessly destroyed, besides their young (about 200) left to die of starvation!” [27].
What had happened was clear. Since Mattingley’s first visit, shooters had gone through the area, killing or maiming the adult egrets, taking their valuable plumes and leaving the baby egrets to die of starvation or fall helplessly out of their nests. It was clear evidence, not only of the suffering of the actual birds from whom the plumes were taken, but of the potential damage to the next generation of birds and thus the continued viability of the entire hatchery.
The outraged Mattingley, now on a mission, carefully photographed the scene of devastation, mobilised Australian ornithologists, and published an article in the Australian bird journal The Emu. He arranged for enlargements of his photographs to be displayed in shop windows, and joined a delegation of prominent ornithologists to the Australian Prime Minister. Realising that this was not just an Australian issue, he also supplied his enlargements to the RSPB in London.
This last step bore unexpected fruit. In London, Mattingly’s photos were published in a detailed supplement to the RSPB’s quarterly magazine, Bird Notes and News, and were displayed in various towns and local newspapers. The magazine reported that “wherever shown they attract considerable crowds” [28]. They formed the basis of a concerted campaign in museums and schools, and groups of uniformed sandwich board men paraded around London, bearing enlargements of the photos (Fig 9).
The Society’s stated aim in so widely disseminating the photos was “not only to bring home the truth of the matter to those whom words may not have convinced, but also to stimulate public opinion to an active support to the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Bill” which was currently before Parliament. Enlargements of the photos and hundreds of copies of the Supplement were distributed in Paris and Amsterdam, and from some of the Audubon Societies in the United States.
Mathoura is a tiny settlement on the banks of the Murray River in New South Wales. It has exceptional wetlands which support an extraordinary number of birds such as ibis, herons, spoonbills and egrets. Back in 1906, a keen bushman, photographer and proto-conservationist named Arthur Mattingley spent ten days camping there, at the major egret hatchery in the St Helena swamp. Impressed by what he had seen, he decided to return a month later so he could photograph egrets feeding their newly-hatched chicks. But as he and his companion returned to the hatchery, they were greeted by a sickening sight:
“We could see some large patches of white, either floating in the air or reclining on the fallen trees in the vicinity of the egrets' rookery... There, strewn on the floating water-weed, and also on adjacent logs, were at least 50 carcasses of large White and smaller Plumed Egrets—nearly one third of the rookery, perhaps more—the birds having been shot off their nests containing young. What a holocaust! Plundered for their plumes. What a monument of human callousness! There were 50 birds ruthlessly destroyed, besides their young (about 200) left to die of starvation!” [27].
What had happened was clear. Since Mattingley’s first visit, shooters had gone through the area, killing or maiming the adult egrets, taking their valuable plumes and leaving the baby egrets to die of starvation or fall helplessly out of their nests. It was clear evidence, not only of the suffering of the actual birds from whom the plumes were taken, but of the potential damage to the next generation of birds and thus the continued viability of the entire hatchery.
The outraged Mattingley, now on a mission, carefully photographed the scene of devastation, mobilised Australian ornithologists, and published an article in the Australian bird journal The Emu. He arranged for enlargements of his photographs to be displayed in shop windows, and joined a delegation of prominent ornithologists to the Australian Prime Minister. Realising that this was not just an Australian issue, he also supplied his enlargements to the RSPB in London.
This last step bore unexpected fruit. In London, Mattingly’s photos were published in a detailed supplement to the RSPB’s quarterly magazine, Bird Notes and News, and were displayed in various towns and local newspapers. The magazine reported that “wherever shown they attract considerable crowds” [28]. They formed the basis of a concerted campaign in museums and schools, and groups of uniformed sandwich board men paraded around London, bearing enlargements of the photos (Fig 9).
The Society’s stated aim in so widely disseminating the photos was “not only to bring home the truth of the matter to those whom words may not have convinced, but also to stimulate public opinion to an active support to the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Bill” which was currently before Parliament. Enlargements of the photos and hundreds of copies of the Supplement were distributed in Paris and Amsterdam, and from some of the Audubon Societies in the United States.
Fig 9: RSPB sandwich board men employed to publicise Mattingley’s photographs, July 1911.
The photographs proved particularly influential for a number of reasons. Firstly, because they concerned a species, the egret, which had been at the forefront of the debate. Secondly, because they provided clear evidence that feathers were not simply being “collected’, but that they were butchered from the birds; thirdly, because they provided much-needed evidence supporting the abolitionists’ claim that breeding stocks were being destroyed; and finally because they were not only graphic, but also heart-breaking in their depiction of the starving chicks as they slowly and inevitably declined.
The Mattingley photographs
Here then is a selection of Mattingley’s historic photographs, as originally published as “The Story of the Egret” in Bird Notes [29]. The images portray the life cycle of the egret, from birth to death, starting in with the adult egret brooding on the eggs in the nest.
Fig 10: “Plumed egret brooding”
With the chicks hatched, the adult goes out in search of food.
Fig 11: “Egret seeking food for young”
The plumage hunter strikes, butchering the adult for its plumes.
Fig 12: “A victim of the Plume-hunter”
The newly-orphaned chicks wait expectantly for the return of the parent.
Fig 13: “Orphaned nestlings”
Now starving, the chicks cry for food.
Fig 14: “Crying for food”
The chicks get weaker and weaker
Fig 15: “Half dead from starvation”
Finally, at the edge of death, the chicks still wait pathetically for the meal that would never come.
Fig 16: “At the Last Gasp”
Conclusion
None of this changed things overnight. But it added to the contributions of the public protestors, the speechmakers, the political negotiators and the evolution in general social attitudes in steadily building up opposition to the plumage trade.
The 1914 Plumage Bill that was before Parliament when Mattingley’s photos were published would have banned all exotic bird imports (other than farmed ostriches) except for scientific research, museum display or other special purposes. It failed to pass, and fell into abeyance because of outbreak of World War I, prompting the formation of the extra-parliamentary Plumage Bill Group. The Bill was re-introduced in 1920 and, after a compromise was reached about having a schedule of prohibited species, rather than a blanket ban, it was eventually passed in 1921.
As it happened, the plumage trade had by then been substantially reduced in any event. Changing tastes in millinery had reduced demand for feather adornments. A younger, post-war market reacted against the ludicrous and tasteless plumes and feathers of their parents, just as they reacted against many of their social moral, political and aesthetic viewpoints [30]. With a few minor revivals, the plumage trade was dying. From then on, as Moore-Colyer points out, the tropical bird population would have less to fear from plumage hunters than from the advances of agriculture, timber extractors and debt-laden governments plundering their natural resources in the interest of short term economic and political gain [31].
So, does this mean that all the agitation and effort was a waste of time? Far from it. The campaign against the plumage trade served the important function of increasing public awareness of ecological considerations that might otherwise be ignored. In a similar way to the suffragette campaign, with which it was roughly contemporaneous, and in which women were again heavily involved, it provided a heady example of ways in which women could exercise social and political influence. And the persistence with which it was waged on various fronts – including the use of potent images – also provided a more general lesson for the ecological campaigns that are still being fought right up to the present day.
© Philip McCouat 2016
This article may be cited as “Philip McCouat, “Feathers, Fashion and Animal Rights”, Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
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The 1914 Plumage Bill that was before Parliament when Mattingley’s photos were published would have banned all exotic bird imports (other than farmed ostriches) except for scientific research, museum display or other special purposes. It failed to pass, and fell into abeyance because of outbreak of World War I, prompting the formation of the extra-parliamentary Plumage Bill Group. The Bill was re-introduced in 1920 and, after a compromise was reached about having a schedule of prohibited species, rather than a blanket ban, it was eventually passed in 1921.
As it happened, the plumage trade had by then been substantially reduced in any event. Changing tastes in millinery had reduced demand for feather adornments. A younger, post-war market reacted against the ludicrous and tasteless plumes and feathers of their parents, just as they reacted against many of their social moral, political and aesthetic viewpoints [30]. With a few minor revivals, the plumage trade was dying. From then on, as Moore-Colyer points out, the tropical bird population would have less to fear from plumage hunters than from the advances of agriculture, timber extractors and debt-laden governments plundering their natural resources in the interest of short term economic and political gain [31].
So, does this mean that all the agitation and effort was a waste of time? Far from it. The campaign against the plumage trade served the important function of increasing public awareness of ecological considerations that might otherwise be ignored. In a similar way to the suffragette campaign, with which it was roughly contemporaneous, and in which women were again heavily involved, it provided a heady example of ways in which women could exercise social and political influence. And the persistence with which it was waged on various fronts – including the use of potent images – also provided a more general lesson for the ecological campaigns that are still being fought right up to the present day.
© Philip McCouat 2016
This article may be cited as “Philip McCouat, “Feathers, Fashion and Animal Rights”, Journal of Art in Society, www.artinsociety.com
We welcome your comments on this article. If you enjoyed it you may also enjoy these:
Other articles on protests:
Other articles on birds:
Return to Home
END NOTES
[1] See for example Proverbs 12:10 “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast”; Exodus 23: 12 “On the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest”; see also Deuteronomy 22: 6-7.
[2] Genesis 1:26-28.
[3] See, for example,Peter Singer, “The Animal Liberation Movement”, Old Hammond Press, Nottingham, 1985 http://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html
[4] David Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, CUP, Cambridge, 2003, Ch 1.
[5] RJ Moore-Colyer, “Feathered Women and Persecuted Birds: The struggle against the Plumage Trade, c. 1860–1922”, Rural History, 11 at 57.
[6] Perkins, op cit at 19.
[7] Tim Birkhead and ors, Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin, Princeton University Press, 2014 at 374.
[8] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[9] Nicholas Daly, The Demographic Imagination and the Nineteenth-Century City, CUP, 2015 at 172.
[10] Day, op cit; Robin W Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection, University of California Press 1975.
[11] Daly, op cit at 171.
[12] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 66.
[13] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 57.
[14] Defenders also raised an argument that special breeding farms were being set up overseas (such as in India) so that feathers could be collected humanely. This claim was substantially discredited.
[15] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 69.
[16] These attitudes were of course still far from any significant embrace of modern animal liberation ideas about animals’ equality with humans and their possession of enforceable “rights”.
[17] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[18] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[19] Barbara T Gates, Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, University of Chicago Press, at 114 onwards.
[20] WH Hudson, “Feathered Women”, SPB Leaflet No 10.
[21] Letter, 10 July 1920 by HW Massingham, writing as ‘Wayfarer’; see also Moore-Colyer, op cit.
[22] Letter to The Times, 3 July 1905, George Bernard Shaw.
[23] R Abbott, “Birds Don’t Sing in Greek: Virginia Woolf and ‘The Plumage Bill‘”, in CJ Adams and J Donovan’s (eds) Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Duke University Press, 1995, cited in http://fashioningfeathers.info/murderous-millinery/
[24] Daly, op cit at 172.
[25] George Frederic Watts, Vol III His Writings, McMillan & Co, London, 1912.
[26] Cited in Keri Cronin, at http://www.ourhenhouse.org/2012/12/a-dedication 27 December 2012.
[27] “Arthur Mattingley, Mathoura and a millinery war”, Mathoura Historical Information Sheet; and The Emu, 1 October 1907.
[28] “The Story of the Egret”, Bird Notes and News, Vol III, 1909 at 94-5.
[29] [available online at https://archive.org/stream/birdnotesnews03roya#page/104/mode/2up
[30] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 71.
[31] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 71.
© Philip McCouat 2016
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[2] Genesis 1:26-28.
[3] See, for example,Peter Singer, “The Animal Liberation Movement”, Old Hammond Press, Nottingham, 1985 http://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html
[4] David Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights, CUP, Cambridge, 2003, Ch 1.
[5] RJ Moore-Colyer, “Feathered Women and Persecuted Birds: The struggle against the Plumage Trade, c. 1860–1922”, Rural History, 11 at 57.
[6] Perkins, op cit at 19.
[7] Tim Birkhead and ors, Ten Thousand Birds: Ornithology since Darwin, Princeton University Press, 2014 at 374.
[8] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[9] Nicholas Daly, The Demographic Imagination and the Nineteenth-Century City, CUP, 2015 at 172.
[10] Day, op cit; Robin W Doughty, Feather Fashions and Bird Preservation: A Study in Nature Protection, University of California Press 1975.
[11] Daly, op cit at 171.
[12] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 66.
[13] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 57.
[14] Defenders also raised an argument that special breeding farms were being set up overseas (such as in India) so that feathers could be collected humanely. This claim was substantially discredited.
[15] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 69.
[16] These attitudes were of course still far from any significant embrace of modern animal liberation ideas about animals’ equality with humans and their possession of enforceable “rights”.
[17] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[18] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 59.
[19] Barbara T Gates, Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World, University of Chicago Press, at 114 onwards.
[20] WH Hudson, “Feathered Women”, SPB Leaflet No 10.
[21] Letter, 10 July 1920 by HW Massingham, writing as ‘Wayfarer’; see also Moore-Colyer, op cit.
[22] Letter to The Times, 3 July 1905, George Bernard Shaw.
[23] R Abbott, “Birds Don’t Sing in Greek: Virginia Woolf and ‘The Plumage Bill‘”, in CJ Adams and J Donovan’s (eds) Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations. Duke University Press, 1995, cited in http://fashioningfeathers.info/murderous-millinery/
[24] Daly, op cit at 172.
[25] George Frederic Watts, Vol III His Writings, McMillan & Co, London, 1912.
[26] Cited in Keri Cronin, at http://www.ourhenhouse.org/2012/12/a-dedication 27 December 2012.
[27] “Arthur Mattingley, Mathoura and a millinery war”, Mathoura Historical Information Sheet; and The Emu, 1 October 1907.
[28] “The Story of the Egret”, Bird Notes and News, Vol III, 1909 at 94-5.
[29] [available online at https://archive.org/stream/birdnotesnews03roya#page/104/mode/2up
[30] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 71.
[31] Moore-Colyer, op cit at 71.
© Philip McCouat 2016
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