Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds

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This goes into both the suffragette/suffragist perspective as also the anti’s which included Etta Lemon and Mrs Humphry Ward–but it was interesting while the men on the anti side raised arguments about ‘natural’ inequality, biological differences and such, the women felt that they did need to play an active role in society–many of them were playing one (even a political one), but that they didn’t need the vote for it. I honestly was not aware of the extent of cruelty involved in the practice as well, like the egret hunting I mentioned earlier—and it was these images that served strongly—though the lens of a camera and in the powerful words of Virginia Woolf that did sent a shudder through people, much more than pamphlets and other campaigns could achieve. Interesting that, even today, it is predominantly women who set up and run animal welfare/rescue initiatives. The first suffragette novel was written that year, 10 miles to the Lemons’ north, in Sanderstead: No Surrender, by Constance Maud. Later I found that another edition (the hardback) of the book is titled Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather.

No natural history of a bird is complete without recording where the last specimen was shot; and should a rare bird visit our shores, the hospitality which we accord to the foreign refugee is denied, and it is bound to be the victim of powder and shot. Politics reared its head at other times too, in Mrs Lemon’s later days when she was pushed out of the society she cared about so much. The village of Peaslake fairly swarmed with suffragettes, including Marion Wallace Dunlop (no-nonsense in tweeds, the first imprisoned militant to go on hunger strike in 1908) and Hilda Brackenbury (a formidable general’s widow, whose daughters had each served six weeks in Holloway). I loved that it didn’t take the well-trodden path of a history of suffragism (even though this is kind of why I picked the book up!During her tenure, the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act 1921 restricted the international trade in feathers, but did not prevent their being sold or worn. La Royal Society for the Protection of Birds : acteurs et stratégies pour une protection des oiseaux en Grande-Bretagne, 1891–1930". Etta married Lemon in 1892, and as Mrs Lemon she became the first honorary secretary, a post she kept until 1904.

The more I got to know Etta Lemon, the more I found myself wondering if she was perhaps neuro-diverse, like today's eco activists Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham (see images below). Teetotaler, vegetarian and a supporter of many humanitarian causes, she was important to the society because of her aristocratic connections.

Lemon died at Redhill on 8 July 1953 aged 92, and was buried next to her husband at St Mary's Church Cemetery, Reigate. Yet Etta Lemon was an impressive speaker, earning the admiration of male journalists at international bird conferences. By 1899, the (R)SPB had 26,000 members of both sexes and 152 branches throughout the British Empire. In many ways, Etta Lemon was a heroine who fought what now feels like a very modern battle against animal cruelty.