Ralph Hedley, 1851-1913

This work was commissioned by the Dicky Bird Society and presented to them in 1897. The society was started in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle by William E. Adam on 7th October 1876.

For years, letters from young DBS members flooded into the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. Addressed to Uncle Toby, who ran the society with the help of Father Chirpie, the letters detailed how youngsters had saved or helped animals. One came from William Tait of Newcastle, who wrote "My brother and myself have made up our minds to protect all our little birds. We started last Saturday with the punching my brother Charley gave Tommy Smith who lives in our street. The cruel boy had a sparrow tied by the leg to a bit of string and was dangling the bird before his dog. I chased the dog with my mother's clothes prop while my brother settled Tommy Smith and promised to give him more unless he joined the Dicky Bird Society".

In 1894 the society held a Grand Commemoration on Newcastle Town Moor to mark reaching the 250,000-member figure. The official programme stated that the society "was devised and continues to be both a protest and an encouragement, a protest against cowardice and cruelty, and an encouragement to the young of both sexes and of all classes to preserve in well-doing". At its height the DBS had a world-wide membership of 308,000.

We are grateful to Tony Henderson from the Newcastle Journal for his kind assistance in cataloguing this work.