Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB

Great Lives

BBC

History, Documentary, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

For over a hundred years no one thought too much about the origins of the RSPB, but among its founders was a woman in Didsbury opposed to the use of feathers in fashionable hats. Emily Williamson was outraged by the widespread slaughter of egrets and the crested grebe. She had tried to join the all-male British Ornithological Union, and when that failed she established her own Society for the Protection of Birds. Nominating Emily is Hannah Bourne-Taylor, author of Fledgling and Nature Needs You, which is about her own campaign for the introduction of swift bricks into all new buildings. Helping Hannah discover more about this little known life is author Tessa Boase, who discovered Emily's role; plus Beccy Speight the current head of the RSPB. Matthew Parris presents. The producer in Bristol for BBC Studios Audio in Miles Warde.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before this BBC podcast kicks off, I'd like to tell you about some others you might enjoy.
0:05.1	My name's Will Wilkin and I Commission Music Podcast for the BBC.
0:08.7	It's a really cool job, but every day we get to tell the incredible stories behind songs,
0:13.5	moments and movements, stories of struggle and success, rises and falls, the funny, the ridiculous.
0:19.1	And the BBC's position, at the heart of British music
0:21.7	means we can tell those stories like no one else.
0:24.5	We were, are and always will be right there at the centre of the narrative.
0:28.6	So whether you want an insightful take on music right now
0:31.3	or a nostalgic deep dive into some of the most famous and infamous moments in music,
0:36.1	check out the music podcasts on BBC Sounds.
0:38.9	Today's guest once had a small bird called a bronze-winged mannequin finch set up home in her hair.
0:47.3	The little fledgling rolled her tresses into a neat nest on or near her collarbone.
0:53.2	I've seen this film, so you just have to believe me,
0:56.0	listeners, it really is true. The bird stayed on her for 84 days. Its adventures written up in a book
1:03.0	called Fledgling. So welcome, Hannah Bourne Taylor. Tell me more about this bird and your relationship.
1:10.0	Did the bird have a name? Well, no, because I knew he was a wild bird. And it was very difficult to remember that when he was nesting in my hair. So that was the line I didn't cross. But I had rescued him and my promise to him was to put his life back on course. And eventually after stalking his family for three months, I did just that. But it wasn't the only bird in my life
1:28.2	because I'd also rescued a swift. And there's a bit of a running theme here with me in birds.
1:32.5	But this bird must, did it think you were its mother? Yes. So he imprinted on me after his nest had
1:37.9	been abandoned and blown down in a storm. And it allowed me to walk through the rural grasslands
1:43.6	every single day to learn how to be
1:46.4	a wild finch and actually it rubbed off on me as well.
1:48.8	You know how to be a wild finch.
	...

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