Margaretta Louisa Lemon

Margaretta Louisa Lemon MBE (née Smith; 22 November 1860 – 8 July 1953), also known as Etta Lemon, was a British ornithologist and conservationist, most well known as a founding member of what is now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

Margaretta Louisa Lemon
Born
Margaretta Louisa Smith

22 November 1860
Died8 July 1953 (1953-07-09) (aged 92)
NationalityBritish
Known forFounding member of RSPB

Early life

Margaretta was born to Captain William Elisha Smith and Louisa Barclay at Hythe, Kent who died in 1867 (and her father married Mary Ann Wollaston). For a while she lived with her step-grandmother in Hastings and then back with her father and step-mother when they moved to Blackheath.

Establishing the 'Fur, Fin and Feather Folk'

Margaretta was inspired by Eliza Brightwen's Wild Nature Won by Kindness (1890) on the killing of egrets for the plume trade. At church she would note women wearing plumes and send them a note on how birds were killed for them. She founded the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk in 1889 Croydon with Mrs Eliza Phillips (1823–1916), Miss Catherine Hall (1838-1924) and Miss Hannah Poland (1873-1942) who had been close neighbours. The organisation had a subscription of two pence and in the first year their membership was nearly 5000. The Fur, Fin and Feather Folk society merged in 1891 with the Society for the Protection of Birds also founded in 1889 by Emily Williamson at Didsbury. She was listed as a Local Secretary, Miss M.L. Smith of 46 Lee Terrace, Blackheath, in the first SPB Annual Report in 1891.

Work at the RSPB
Main article: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

In 1904 the Society for the Protection of Birds was incorporated by royal charter to become the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or RSPB. The constitution for the new merged society was written by a barrister Frank Edward Lemon (c.1859–1935) who served as a legal advisor. Margaretta married Lemon on 25 May 1892 and they lived in Redhill in Surrey. Mrs Lemon conducted the society's daily business as the honorary secretary of the Publishers and Watchers Committees from 1893 to 1904. Her position was taken up by Frank Lemon after 1904. She continued to be the driving force behind the society and her efforts are credited for the success of the society.[1][2] She worked to help the passing of the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act 1921.[3] The bill was introduced in 1908 but not passed until 1921 and then not enforced until 1 April 1922, a culmination of the RSPB's original raison d'être.[4] Mrs Lemon, like many other women of the time, opposed the suffragists because they used plumed hats as part of their identity. She even headed the East Surrey branch of the Anti-Suffrage League. Mrs Lemon was elected to the British Ornithologists' Union but she did not consider herself an ornithologist and looked upon ornithologists as opponents of the RSPB which sought to curb the collection of eggs and the shooting of birds for specimens. When the secretary of the society, Linda Gardiner, retired in 1935, there was a proposal to replace the position with a man, apparently to give the society more acceptability. This idea was opposed by the two women assistant secretaries which included her niece Phyllis Barclay-Smith. Mrs Lemon, who was acting honorary secretary after Frank's death in April 1935 did not support the women assistants plea for gender equality leading to their resignation. She even omitted any mention of their resignation in the society's magazine. Mrs Lemon came under scrutiny in The Field where an editorial in 1936 questioned the Society's inaction on cage birds, its gambling on real estate, the high expenditure, and aged management. This led to the establishment of a six-member committee headed by Julian Huxley of the Zoological Society of London that proposed changes in the management which included fixed terms for elected members. The rules however came into effect only in 1960, well after Mrs Lemon's death at Annandale, Redhill. She was buried at Reigate.[5]

Other works

Margaretta also worked with the Royal Earlswood Institution, the Crescent House Convalescent Home, Brighton and during the First World War she volunteered at the Redhill Clinic for which she was made MBE in 1920.[5]

References
  1. International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950, Catharine M. C. Haines p 174
  2. "Professor Florence S. Boos, Department of English, The University of Iowa" (PDF). Uiowa.edu. 25 March 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 December 2014. Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  3. Lemon, Margaretta L. (1895). "The Bird of Paradise". Nature. 52 (1339): 197. doi:10.1038/052197f0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  4. "RSPB history 1900-1920". Retrieved 29 October 2018.
  5. Hammond, Nicholas (2004). "Lemon [née Smith], Margaretta Louis (1860–1953)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/53037.

Further reading
  • Boase, Tessa (2018). Mrs Pankhurst's Purple Feather: Fashion, Fury and Feminism – Women's Fight for Change. Aurum Press. ISBN 978-1781316542. Mainly a biography of Etta Lemon
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