Arthur Mattingley

He made his greatest impact as a photographer and conservationist when he reported his two visits to the St Helena swamp in the Emu (October 1907)'

In 1906 and 1907 Mattingley made two trips to the St Helena swampland on the Edward River to the northeast of Mathoura. He wrote an article about each trip, both of which were published in the same edition of the Emu. Mattingley's first trip was in November 1906 to 'make a closer acquaintance with the heronries casually observed by me in my earlier years' (Herons, Egrets, Night Herons, Bitterns). He observed 'the stream had risen in many places above its banks and had submerged the surrounding country'. He returned soon after in his Christmas holidays to 'obtain one picture only—namely, that of a "White Crane" or Egret feeding its young.' On the second trip, as he described in the second article 'Plundered for their plumes' which was accompanied by his photographs, he found the bodies of 50 white and plumed egrets shot by 'plume hunters' to sell to the fashion industry. Mattingley counted 70 nestlings that had died and 200 left to die of starvation. The disinformation put about by the fashion industry was that the fashion feathers were gleaned from feathers the birds used to line their nests, that the feathers were gathered after being moulted, and that the feathers used in fashion had been made by hand. Mattingley's 7 photographs revealed the truth, that the much-desired feathers were only produced when breeding, came from the bird's back and could only be collected by killing the parent, which caused the young birds to starve to death. Mattingley's photos arrived in the UK at an opportune moment. In 1908, a Plumage Bill had passed the House of Lords and was sent to the Commons.