In this summer of scorching heat and consequent wildfires, the threat of destruction to protected British bird habitats has brought the urgency of conservation to the fore. As well as environmental concerns, the beauty of birds is close to many hearts, with the joy of birdwatching seeing a dramatic surge in interest.
In fact, recent RSPB research suggests birdwatching is currently the fastest-growing hobby of Generation Z women, after jewellery making. Much of it is driven by social media, with high-traffic birding reels on Instagram and a Tiktok genre, known as “Birdtok”. Apps such as BirdNET help identify birdsong, inspiring travel to seek out rarer tunes. And across the pond, synagogues in rural areas are holding communal “birding Shabbat dinners”, to bring young families into the fold.
What these recent birders won’t know, as few do, is that the RSPB charity, with its one million members and 224 nature reserves, didn’t form over the right to observe birds in the countryside. It was a campaign led by five indomitable women, over a century ago, with a purpose that upset the economic and social order of the time. Their ambitious aim, forged at a time when women did not yet have the right to vote, was to end one of the most profitable global trades ever recorded: the use of exotic birds and feathers for the creation of luxury hats. Between the 1870s and 1920s, millions of wild birds were killed for the “murderous millinery” trade. In the UK it was worth £200 million a year, £2 billion in today’s money.
And we are certainly not just talking feathers, whole stuffed birds were arranged, back to back, or on top of each other and the rarer the breed, the better.
Tragically, the birds were hunted when their plumage was at its best: in the mating season. It meant that fledglings starved without their parents, making extinction probable.
In 1889, a devoted Christian, Emma Williamson founded the SPB, Society for the Protection of Birds, in Manchester. The society demanded a boycott of birds on hats and finally triumphed with The Importation Plumage (Prohibition) Act of 1921, which undoubtedly saved bird ecosystems.
The story of their activism has long been eclipsed, by the ironically elegantly plumed, Emmeline Pankhurst, who was leading the campaign for women’s suffrage at the same time. Just as they had “Votes For Women”, the SPB also had a simple pledge: “Wear No Feathers”.
The resurgence of women birders spurred renewed interest in these female founders, most of whom were religious and aiming to save “God’s creatures”. It was shocking then to discover, as a curious birder myself, that one of the founder members, nestled amongst these conservative, mid-life women, was a 16-year-old Jewish girl.
Hannah Poland was the daughter of a wealthy Billingsgate fish merchant, and lived with her parents and sisters at 28 Warwick Avenue, in Maida Vale, London. Their home was also the first London registered address for the SPB, before the royal warrant was granted and it became the RSPB. When Emily Williamson resigned in 1891, she appointed Poland as honorary secretary. Aged just 18, she found herself at the helm of one of the most significant political campaigns of the day.
While in recent years other founder members have been recognised with blue plaques and statues, information on Poland is sparse and an application for a blue plaque was, indeed, turned down on these grounds.
Most pre-war records of the RSPB were damaged in the Second World War, sadly leaving us with no photographs of Poland. This meant I too had little to go on.
What we do know is that she was buried in Willesden Jewish Cemetery and that an obituary, written a year after she died in 1943, was printed in the RSPB newsletter. I began my research at her final resting place and my findings were both poignant surprising.
Miriam Marson, Head of Heritage at the Willesden Jewish Cemetery, also had a surprise in store. “As a keen birder, I introduced the RSPB’s Birdwatch at Willesden a few years ago.
“I was astonished when they contacted me in 2024 to say Hannah Poland, one of its earliest members and honorary secretary, is buried here.
“Despite largely being written out of history, her courage deserves to be celebrated” says Marson, adding, “it is likely and ironic that other women of means and achievement who are buried here took great pleasure in wearing the luxury hats to which Hannah was so opposed!”
Thanks to a recent grant, the cemetery is able to make its own commitment to conservation with its new The House of Life heritage centre.
“Hannah’s story captures everything our centre is about: rediscovering hidden lives, celebrating remarkable women and connecting our heritage with the living natural world,” explains Marson.
But to tell that story it is important to understand how she came to the role at her tender age. There are clues. Newspapers were widely read at the time and there were many articles in them by male scientists and naturalists, in the main members of the Selbourne Society, who were also against the plumage trade.
A reference in one of the many biographies of the writer, naturalist and Selbourne member, William H Hudson, indicates Hannah’s family knew him well and she was likely encouraged into conservation by him. An early biography of him by Robert Hamilton, W.H.Hudson; the Vision of Earth” (1946), quotes Hudson saying that Poland had been involved in the campaign since its early days in Manchester and that she became Secretary at the specific request of Emily Williamson.
He notes Hudson called Poland “that brave young girl”.
If there was a father of the RSPB, William H Hudson was that man. He wrote and paid for its pamphlets and eventually bequeathed the charity his fortune. When he arrived in London he was already a famous author, naturalist and ornithologist in his native Argentina. His family had hosted Charles Darwin in Buenos Aires and Hudson, according to some, corrected the manuscript for On the Origin of Species.
Horrified by the feathers adorning women’s clothes on the streets of London, Hudson quickly got involved in the anti-plumage campaign, flooding the media with letters and lobbying artists and intellectuals to join the cause. Hannah did the same and some of her letters survived.
In a letter to the editor of the Newcastle Chronicle in April 1891, Poland is sharply to the point. Hoping to recruit new members to the charity, she asks only one thing of them; that they “refrain from wearing the feathers of any bird not killed for the purpose of food in the hope that this dreadful slaughter, at the dictates of a cruel and remorseless fashion, should cease”.
Hundreds of such letters these went out to newspapers nationwide but such was the urgency of the campaign, the charity decided it should do what social influencers do today and get celebrity endorsement.
Poland aimed high: the royals. And for me, this is where her case for a blue plaque is sealed.
Her obituary noted that, “It was at her her solicitation that the Duchess of Portland became President of the Society in June 1881 and membership increased very considerably”.
Poland was just 18 years old and the Duchess was fashion aristocracy: she was the “dresser” of Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII. Put another way, she was head honcho of the Queen’s ladies in waiting.
Securing the support of the women who put together the Queen’s wardrobe made securing the Royal Charter in 1904 possible. And doing so could not have been more timely. The previous had been especially bloody for birds. That year the fashion for the billowy plumage known to milliners as “osprey” reached it height and four snowy egrets had to die for one ounce of it. So treasured was this plumage, one ounce could secure twice as much money as an ounce of gold. It is fair to say that at the age of 18, Poland changed the world for the better.
And while Hudson, who died in 1922, is commemorated with a striking memorial sculpture in Hyde Park, by Jacob Epstein, a stunning portrait by William Rothenstein and a novel made into a film – Green Mansions starring Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins – Poland has almost nothing official to carry her into prosperity.
But Marson is hopeful this will change.
“We are planning guided walks, to highlight the lives of the women buried here and hope to raise funds for an on-site heritage plaque for Hannah, so that every visitor can discover her pioneering work and activism for themselves.”
A guided walk: Women of Willesden is at 2pm on August 30 in Willesden Cemetery and at 12.30pm on Sunday October 18
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