Ada Nield is a kind-of local celebrity where I live and I’m working on a campaign to commemorate her in statue form, so this bit felt very relevant to me.

This was the first time in six years, since moving to London, that Hannah Lemon had chatted to strangers: ‘Not a sad, scary conversation about the Coronavirus, but positive, happy chat about the birdlife on the pond, and about the swans.What was really interesting was the idea of women’s legacies – the Pankhurst name has become legendary, while Etta Lemon is pretty much forgotten. Margaretta (Etta) Louisa Lemon MBE (1860-1953) of Reigate was a co-founder of the all-female organisation that later became the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The title "Society for the Protection of Birds" was dismissed as "very ambitious" by one British Museum naturalist, "for a band of ladies who do nothing but abstain from personal iniquity in the matter of bonnets. Two earlier campaigning organisations founded in 1885, the Selborne League and the Plumage League, had amalgamated in the following year as the Selborne Society, [16] but were soon outstripped by the SPB because of the latter organisation's extensive network of local branches [17] and its single-issue focus.

I liked that this book shed some light on some powerful women of the past (as both the RSPB and suffragette contingents were mainly female). Lemon could not continue as honorary secretary since the charter excluded women from leading the organisation. This gripping narrative explores two singular heroines – one lionised, the other forgotten – and their rival, overlapping campaigns. Teetotaler, vegetarian and a supporter of many humanitarian causes, she was important to the society because of her aristocratic connections.Etta set up a team of 22 ‘Watchers’ – the eyes and ears of bird protection in the RSPB’s first nature reserves.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.I dislike pitting women against each other, but the contrast between Etta Lemon's bird protection movement and the campaign for the vote didn't do this; the book is respectful to the views of both women, which in many ways were opposed, and is grounded in an understanding of what it was like to live as a woman at the time. Species began to struggle as millineries needed more and more birds to decorate increasingly extravagant hats. She therefore conducted the society's daily business as the honorary secretary of the society's publishers and watchers committees. Etta Lemon was the prime mover behind the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, founded in 1889 to stamp out the fashion for feathers in hats.