Thenewsletter the MAGAZINE of the RSPB BOLTON LOCAL GROUP
FEBRUARY 2020 thenewsletter THE MAGAZINE OF THE RSPB BOLTON LOCAL GROUP Mallard John Gofton Editorial Welcome to our latest edition of the newsletter. Happy Birthday to us! Well, not us as a group, (though we were 41 in November), but the RSPB as a whole. November 2019 marked the RSPB's 130th birthday! 17 February 1889 marks the first meeting of the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk in Croydon, but it was 13 November 1889 when the Society for the Protection of Birds was founded in Manchester. When it all began back in the late Victorian era, the threat to wild birds came not from climate change but from milliners, who fuelled a demand for feathers that saw birds killed in their hundreds of thousands, purely to decorate the hats and accessories of fashionable ladies. The organisation started life as the Society for the Protection of Birds, a group founded by Emily Williamson at her home in Manchester in 1889. Formed to counter this barbarous trade, responsible for the destruction of many thousands of egrets, grebes, birds of paradise and other species, the group quickly gaining popularity, and in 1891 they joined forces with the Fur, Fin and Feather Folk, founded at Eliza Phillips' home in Croydon, to form a larger and stronger SPB, based in London, The SPB was granted its Royal Charter in 1904, just 15 years after being founded, giving us the RSPB as we know today. https://www.rspb.org.uk/about-the-rspb/about-us/our-history/ The Bolton Group have managed to send another contribution of £1,000 to the RSPB, so thank you all for your contributions in helping make up this amount.
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