(^156) an environmenTal hisTory of Wildlife in england
1880s saw ‘the first, unmistakable signs... of a widely shared interest in
watching birds without any attempt to shoot them’.^103
We should not exaggerate the speed with which this latter attitude took hold.
Well into the twentieth century, many keen naturalists were also sportsmen,
and many of the rare birds reported in the journals of county societies were
specimens that had been shot. Nevertheless, the new attitudes fused with
wider concerns about cruelty to domestic animals, especially as there was now
widespread awareness that many wild species were experiencing significant
declines. The East Riding Association for the Protection of Sea-Birds was
established in 1868 in Bridlington, arguably the first conservation movement
in the world, and the Sea Birds Protection Act was passed in 1869. This was
followed by the Wild Bird Protection Act of 1872; the Wild Fowl Preservation
Act of 1876;^104 and by the much vaunted Wild Bird Protection Act of 1880,
which established a national close season for a number of birds, and made it
illegal to take their eggs.^105 Its effects were limited, however, because it was
left to local authorities to decide which of the listed birds should be afforded
protection, while no protection at all was given to adults outside the close
season. Moreover, as Marchant and Watkins noted in 1897, ‘Many rare birds,
which are in danger of being exterminated, have been left out, for example, the
kite, the osprey, the buzzard, and the hen harrier, and there might well have been
added birds such as the kestrel, the golden eagle, the rose-coloured pastor, the
heron and the crossbill’, mostly birds of prey, of course, and thus considered
a threat to game.^106 In fact, while the Act did not give national protection to
these species, in a number of counties many were afforded a degree of local
protection, through the enactment of specific Statutory Instruments, in part
because of continued protests against their wanton destruction.^107
Continued concern over the fate of the nation’s birds, and in particular over
their slaughter to provide plumage for women’s hats, led to the foundation of
the Society for the Protection of Birds, later the RSPB, in 1889. Its vigorous
campaign against egg-collecting and indiscriminate shooting helped lead to
further legislation: the 1896 Wild Birds Protection Act, which gave county
councils the right to apply for orders to protect particular areas or species;
and the Act of 1902, which allowed any birds or eggs which had been taken
illegally to be confiscated. These were followed by Acts of 1904 and 1908,
which forbade the use of pole traps; and by the Protection of Birds Act of
1925, which banned the use of lime to catch birds.^108
The RSPB was one of several conservation movements which developed
in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.^109 These, although
overlapping in their aims and membership, were of diverse character, their
supporters putting varying degrees of emphasis on the preservation of
rural landscapes, open spaces for recreation, ancient buildings and wildlife.
The earliest was the Commons Preservation Society, founded in 1865 by
John Stuart Mill, Lord Eversley, Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill, the
housing reformer. Although surviving areas of common land were often of
prime conservation importance, the main interest of the society was in their
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