White feather

The Crusades

Shame was exerted upon men in England and France who had not taken the cross at the time of the Third Crusade, "A great many men sent each other wool and distaff, hinting that if anyone failed to join this military undertaking they were only fit for women's work".^[2]

World War I

In August 1914, at the start of the First World War, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather with support from the prominent author Mrs Humphrey Ward. The organization aimed to shame men into enlisting in the British army by persuading women to present them with a white feather if they were not wearing a uniform.^[3][4]

This was joined by prominent feminists and suffragettes of the time, such as Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel. They, in addition to handing out the feathers, also lobbied to institute an involuntary universal draft, which included those who lacked votes due to being too young or not owning property.^[5][6][7]

While the true effectiveness of the campaign is impossible to judge, it did spread throughout several other nations in the Empire. In Britain it started to cause problems for the government when public servants and men in essential occupations came under pressure to enlist. This prompted the Home Secretary, Reginald McKenna, to issue employees in state industries with lapel badges reading "King and Country" to indicate that they too were serving the war effort. Likewise, the Silver War Badge, given to service personnel who had been honourably discharged due to wounds or sickness, was first issued in September 1916 to prevent veterans from being challenged for not wearing uniform. Anecdotes from the period indicates that the campaign was not popular amongst soldiers - not least because soldiers who were home on leave could find themselves presented with the feathers.

One such was Private Ernest Atkins who was on leave from the Western Front. He was riding a tram when he was presented with a white feather by a girl sitting behind him. He smacked her across the face with his pay book saying: "Certainly I'll take your feather back to the boys at Passchendaele. I'm in civvies because people think my uniform might be lousy, but if I had it on I wouldn't be half as lousy as you." ^[8]

Private Norman Demuth, who had been discharged from the British Army after being wounded in 1916, received numerous white feathers after returning from the Western Front, and decided that if the women that handed them out were going to be rude to him, he was going to be rude back.^[9] One of the last feathers he received was presented to him whilst he was travelling on a bus, by a lady who was sat opposite him. She handed over the feather and said, "Here's a gift for a brave soldier." Demuth replied, "Thank you very much - I wanted one of those." He then used the feather to clean out his pipe, handed it back to her and remarked, "You know we didn't get these in the trenches." The other passengers subsequently became angry with the woman and started shouting at her, much to Demuth's amusement.^[10]

The supporters of the campaign were not easily put off. A woman who confronted a young man in a London park demanded to know why he was not in the army. "Because I am a German", he replied. He received a white feather anyway.^[11]

Perhaps the most misplaced use of a white feather was when one was presented to Seaman George Samson who was on his way in civilian clothes to a public reception in his honour. Samson had been awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in the Gallipoli campaign.^[12]

Roland Gwynne, later mayor of Eastbourne (1929–1931) and lover of suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams, received a feather from a relative. This prompted him to enlist, and he subsequently received the Distinguished Service Order for bravery.^[13] The writer Compton Mackenzie, then a serving soldier, complained about the activities of the Order of the White Feather. He argued that these "idiotic young women were using white feathers to get rid of boyfriends of whom they were tired". The pacifist Fenner Brockway claimed that he received so many white feathers he had enough to make a fan.

The white feather campaign was briefly renewed during World War II.^[14][15]

Other symbolism

In the United States, the white feather has also become a symbol of courage, persistence and superior combat marksmanship. Its most notable wearer was US Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock, who was awarded the Silver Star medal for bravery during the Vietnam War. Hathcock picked up a white feather on a mission and wore it in his hat to taunt the enemy. He was so feared by enemy troops that they put a price on his head. Its wear on combat headgear flaunts an insultingly easy target for enemy snipers.^[16]

Literature

The adventure novel The Four Feathers (1902) by A. E. W. Mason tells the story of Harry Faversham, an officer in the British Army, who decides to resign his commission the day before his regiment is dispatched to fight in Sudan (the 1882 First War of Sudan, leading to the fall of Khartoum). Harry's three fellow officers and his fiancée conclude that he is resigning in order to avoid fighting in the conflict, and each send him a white feather. Stung by the criticism, Harry sails to Sudan, disguises himself as an Arab, and looks for the opportunity to redeem his honour. He manages this by fighting a covert war on behalf of the British, saving the life of one of his colleagues in the process. On returning to England he asks each of his accusers to take back one of the feathers.

The 1907 P. G. Wodehouse novel The White Feather is a school story about apparent cowardice and the efforts a boy goes to in order to redeem himself by physical combat.

In the novel Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear, four young girls take it upon themselves to hand out feathers to young men not in uniform in an effort to shame them into enlisting on Britain's side in The Great War.

The Man Who Stayed at Home, a 1914 play by J. E. Harold Terry and Lechmere Worrall, was renamed The White Feather when staged in North America. The title character is a British secret agent who is falsely perceived to be a coward for his refusal to enlist as a soldier.^[17]

In The Camels are Coming (1932), the first-ever collection of Biggles stories, Biggles is handed a white feather by a young woman while on leave in civilian clothes, who is later taken aback to find that he is one of the Royal Flying Corps' leading pilots.

In Pat Barker's 1991 novel Regeneration, the character Burns is given two white feathers during his home leave from Craiglockhart War Hospital.

In the 2015 graphic novel Suffrajitsu: Mrs. Pankhurst's Amazons, Christabel Pankhurst is depicted encouraging women to hand white feathers to every young man they see out of uniform. Persephone Wright, the protagonist of the story and heretofore a staunch supporter of Pankhurst's Votes for Women campaigns, rejects the idea on ethical grounds, saying "a man who's been shamed into service isn't a volunteer at all".

Music

The Order of the White Feather was the inspiration for the Weddings Parties Anything song "Scorn of the Women", which concerns a man who is deemed medically unfit for service when he attempts to enlist, and is unjustly accused of cowardice.

In 1983, new wave band Kajagoogoo released their debut album called White Feathers, whose opener was the title track, a light-hearted allegory for weak people, whereas the final track, Frayo, had a political flavour, referencing cowardice as the cause for an unchanging war-torn world.

In 1985, progressive rock band Marillion released an anti-war song called White Feather as the ending track to their album Misplaced Childhood.

Film and television

The novel The Four Feathers has been the basis of at least seven feature films, the most recent being The Four Feathers (2002), starring Heath Ledger. It was also parodied in the Dad's Army episode "The Two and a Half Feathers".

In the 1980 BBC TV series To Serve Them All My Days, David Powlett-Jones, a shell-shocked Tommy, takes a position in a boys' school. Suspecting that fellow teacher Carter may be avoiding war duty, he muses, "I'd give a good deal to know whether he's really got a gammy knee", to which an acerbic colleague responds, "I suppose we couldn't get some chubby cherub to give him the white feather" as a means of accusing the suspected malingerer.

In the short-lived 2007 British period drama Lilies, the brother of the protagonists is discharged from the military during World War I after his boat sinks and he is one of a handful of shell shocked survivors. Billy gets sent and given numerous white feathers for his perceived cowardice, and begins to hallucinate them choking him. This is a recurring theme throughout the series.

In the 2010 Australian film Beneath Hill 60 about real-life soldier Oliver Woodward, Woodward, before enlisting, receives several feathers to which he jokingly states, "Just a few more feathers, and I'll have a whole chicken."

In the first episode of the second season of Downton Abbey a pair of young women interrupt a benefit concert to hand out white feathers to the men who have not enlisted, before being ordered out by an angry Earl of Grantham.