Monday 13 October 2025

Fashion Fury and Feathers
Women's fight for change 
by Tessa Boase

When social historian Tessa Boase told the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds she wanted to write their early story, they refused to let her visit their archives. To a former investigative journalist, this was a challenge she could not resist!  This lecture shines a light on the intriguing story of women’s love affair with plumage ­ – and of the brave eco feminists who fought back on behalf of the birds. Moving from a polite Victorian tea party to an egret hunt in a Florida swamp; from a suffragette ‘monster rally’ to a milliner’s dusty workshop, we will be taken back in time to a world where every woman, of every class wore a hat. 

Shocking and surprising, entertaining and moving, this pacy lecture remains Tessa's most popular. 

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Tessa Boase

Tessa is a freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th centuries – revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She’s the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (first published as Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather in 2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022). Since uncovering the feminist origins of the RSPB, Tessa has been campaigning for public recognition of its female founders with plaques, portraits and a statue.