Hats off for the ostrich feather! A transcription tale

Transcription tales – long and short. While we are working from home the Heritage Collections team are transcribing many of the nineteenth century letters in the collections. This makes them much more accessible for keyword searching. Transcription is also a great way for the team to learn more about the collections. We hope to share some of our discoveries while the library is closed due to the extraordinary Level 4 response to the global pandemic, COVID19.

Today’s topic is the ostrich industry, inspired by a letter to Sir George Grey from Hollings William Ogilvie, 18 September 1881.

Image: Ostrich farm, Whitford, about 1900. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, Footprints 00883.

The ostrich industry was a thriving international trade in the nineteenth century when hats required feathers. Ostrich feathers featured on the fashionable millinery (hat making) for the well-dressed gentlewoman as well as the proper dress uniform for the military. This fashion started in the French Court in the 1860s and by the time this letter was written – in 1881 – the demand for ostrich feathers was at its peak.

In transcribing the letter to Sir George Grey from Hollings William Ogilvie, 18 September 1881 it is interesting to note that Sir George Grey is credited for starting the lucrative farming of domesticated ostriches at the Cape in the 1860s with just two tame birds:

“From my experience, I think the North Island, and many of the Islands on the Coast well suited for Birds, most particularly the Chatham Isles, the latter quite as good as the Cape itself. I think that you may lay claim indirectly, to being the introducer of the domesticated ostrich, into Africa, if you remember some 21 years ago, you had two tame ones in the grounds of Parliament House Cape Town.”

Image: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 1. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 2. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

In the next page Mr Ogilvie goes on to give some data on the lucrative business opportunity for ostrich farming for the feather market in South Africa:

“A Mr Atherton near Grahams Town made £600 [pounds] yearly from one pair of Breeding Birds, this of course is an exception but I may state, that if ostrich feathers decreased in value, 40%, they would pay better, than any other industry at the Cape, the average sales in Port Elizabeth alone are $50,000 [pounds] monthly.”

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 3. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Images: Hollings William Ogilvie. Letter to Sir George Grey, page 4. 18 September 1881. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, GLNZ O2.

Mr Ogilvie makes a strong case. It is not clear whether he was able to convince Grey in this letter, dated 1881, but South Auckland was the site of ostrich farming thanks, in part, to Lawrence Nathan.

Whitford Park was in south east Auckland. The Nathans' 3000 acre estate “Whitford Park” provided feathers from its ostriches for use in the fashion trade from 1887 until the 1920s. The Nathan family were entrepreneurial businessmen in New Zealand, with David Nathan, Lawrence’s father, opening his first shop in Auckland 1841. LD Nathan remains a major firm in New Zealand. The record on Kura Heritage Collections Online notes that the flock was moved to Helvetia, near Paerata, in 1903. There is still an Ostrich Farm Road in this area – you can see the green farmland on Google maps:

Image: Ostrich Farm Road, sourced from Google Maps.

For more on Helvetia and the Auckland ostrich industry, see Timespanner's blogs Ostriches and Politics and Ostriches Again.

The fashion for ostrich feathers in hats reached its peak in the London in the 1880s with feathers being imported mostly from South Africa, as Mr Ogilivie’s letter reports. The industry collapsed by 1914 with an over supply of feathers, the arrival of the motor car (which didn’t accommodate big hats easily) and the start of the First World War. Ostrich farming didn’t become a major New Zealand industry alongside wool and butter, but we played our part in trimming our hats with the fabulous feathers as you can see in the examples below, selected from our Heritage Collections. See if you can identify some of the classes of feathers used in fashionable hats and dress uniform.

Feather classes included:

Prime Whites — the largest most valuable feathers from the wings of male birds
Feminas — wing feathers from female birds with soft flowing hairs extending from the central quill
Spadones — lower grade wing feathers, less full in look.
Blacks — body feathers from male ostriches
Drabs — shorter body feathers used for feather dusters and such like