The Order of the White Feather of Cowardice

In August 1914, Admiral Charles Fitzgerald founded the Order of the White Feather. With the support of leading writers such as Mary Ward and Emma Orczy, the organisation encouraged women to give out white feathers to young men who had not joined the British Army.

One young woman remembers her father, Robert Smith, being given a feather on his way home from work: "That night he came home and cried his heart out. My father was no coward, but had been reluctant to leave his family. He was thirty-four and my mother, who had two young children, had been suffering from a serious illness. Soon after this incident my father joined the army."

The government became concerned when women began presenting state employees with white feathers. It was suggested to Reginald McKenna, the Home Secretary, that these women should be arrested for "conduct likely to disrupt the police".

McKenna refused but he did arrange for state employees to be issued with badges testifying that they were serving 'King and Country'.

Although he was a serving soldier, the writer, Compton Mackenzie, 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.

James Lovegrove was only sixteen when he joined the British Army on the outbreak of the First World War. "On my way to work one morning a group of women surrounded me. They started shouting and yelling at me, calling me all sorts of names for not being a soldier!

Do you know what they did? They struck a white feather in my coat, meaning I was a coward. Oh, I did feel dreadful, so ashamed.

I went to the recruiting office. The sergeant there couldn't stop laughing at me, saying things like "Looking for your father, sonny?", and "Come back next year when the war's over!" Well, I must have looked so crestfallen that he said "Let's check your measurements again". You see, I was five foot six inches and only about eight and a half stone. This time he made me out to be about six feet tall and twelve stone, at least, that is what he wrote down. All lies of course - but I was in!"

William Brooks Once war broke out the situation at home became awful, because people did not like to see men or lads of army age walking about in civilian clothing, or not in uniform of some sort, especially in a military town like Woolwich. Women were the worst. They would come up to you in the street and give you a white feather, or stick it in the lapel of your coat. A white feather is the sign of cowardice, so they meant you were a coward and that you should be in the army doing your bit for King and Country.

It got so bad it wasn't safe to go out. So in 1915 at the age of seventeen I volunteered under the Lord Derby scheme. Now that was a thing where once you applied to join you were not called up at once, but were given a blue armband with a red crown to wear. This told people that you were waiting to be called up, and that kept you safe, or fairly safe, because if you were seen to be wearing it for too long the abuse in the street would soon start again.

The following poem was used as "ammunition" by the "White Feather Brigade".

"What will you lack, sonny, what will you lack,
When the girls line up the street
Shouting their love to the lads to come back
From the foe they rushed to beat?
Will you send a strangled cheer to the sky
And grin till your cheeks are red?
But what will you lack when your mate goes by
With a girl who cuts you dead?
Where will you look, sonny, where will you look,
When your children yet to be
Clamour to learn of the part you took
In the War that kept men free?
Will you say it was naught to you if France
Stood up to her foe or bunked?
But where will you look when they give the glance
That tells you they know you funked?
How will you fare, sonny, how will you fare
In the far-off winter night,
When you sit by the fire in an old man's chair
And your neighbours talk of the fight?
Will you slink away, as it were from a blow,
Your old head shamed and bent?
Or say - I was not with the first to go,
But I went, thank God, I went?
Why do they call, sonny, why do they call
For men who are brave and strong?
Is it naught to you if your country fall,
And Right is smashed by Wrong?

Is it football still and the picture show,
The pub and the betting odds,
When your brothers stand to the tyrant's blow,
And England's call is God's!"

Webmaster's note.

The practice of "awarding" the white feather often got out of hand. Many Australian women became excessive and over-reaching in their attempts to force men to enlist.
- Men who came home on "Anzac Leave" after 4 years of war were issued with badges to be worn on civilian clothing so that they wouldn't be accused of "shirking".
- A British VC winner at Gallipoli, who was wounded at least 24 times, and who was attending a celebration in his honour in his home town was "awarded' a white feather because he was in civilian clothing.
- My Dad, who was decorated for bravery in WW1 as an infantryman and who re-enlisted as an infantryman in WW2 and was refused because his qualifications were needed in Australia in a "Reserved Occupation" was "awarded" a white feather in about 1942/43.
- In both world wars the Australian Government found it necessary to award badges to men who had enlisted and been rejected because of
  - medical problems
  - age
  - absence of required physical guidelines (height, weight, chest size etc)
  - vital war related work in Australia (munitions workers etc) or
  - necessary Government service or "Reserved Occupations".