TESSA BOASE

Etta Lemon is the formidable woman who built the RSPB. Known by one and all as Mrs Lemon, her surname suited her. She was bitter in her...

In March 1888, a record-breaking plumage sale was held at the London Commercial Salesrooms. Among the many thousand birds-of paradise,...

When I started researching Margaretta Lemon, the woman who built the all-female RSPB, I assumed that she would be in favour of women's...

Statues of women are troubling. Just look at the reaction to the 2020 Mary Wollstonecraft statue by Maggi Hambling. ‘Catastrophically...

Victorian campaigner Emily Williamson was so incensed by the millinery trade’s use of plumage that she invited her friends to tea ⁠— and...

Was the Servants’ Ball really so marvellous? It is invoked as an example of the cosy, protective relationship within the English country...

I stumbled across Heather Firbank, Edwardian fashion victim, when I made an appointment to view a dozen feathered hats at the Victoria...

A dozen feathered hats, hidden within the fashion archives of the Victorian and Albert Museum, London, were my first introduction to...