Green Grow the Budgies-oh

 A look at the popular gardening magazines of the 1930s confirms the popularity of bird fancying of all types - a garden aviary was de-rigueur among those with a big enough garden. The hobby of both keeping and breeding budgies was popular enough for the formation of the Budgerigar Society.

As most of us know, you can get budgies with markings in a variety of colours - blue, white, yellow, green. And the most common colour as the 1930s progressed was green. Search for the phrase "Green budgerigar" in the 1930s section of the British Newspaper Archive and the number of hits steadily increases as the decade goes on. There is a notable high peak in 1939. Most of these hits are sales adverts - or appeals for missing budgies.

Fife Free Press, 8 June 1935:

Lost, green budgerigar, blue tail, finder rewarded at Evanton, Dysart Road

Lost on Wednesday 5th June, green budgerigar, reward, Hendry Road

Breeders worked hard to get that perfect shade of green for their budgies. W. Watmough of the Budgerigar Society wrote for the Yorkshire Observer in July 1936:

"Light green is the colour of the ancestors of all domesticated budgerigars. I do not think that for beauty of colour, markings and form they have ever been excelled by any other [colour]" The Budgerigar Society's standard was a "rich, bright, grass green."

It seems that though the urge to control nature was strong, those breeding budgies wanted that control to look as natural as possible.

The British Colour Council

 On Wednesday 9th October 1929, Lord Ebury presided over a meeting in the Connaught Rooms at the Park Lane Hotel, London. The proposal under discussion was the formation of an organisation that would determine "colour tendencies for the fashion and allied trades."

The reasoning behind this effort to control fashions in colour dyes was economic. The new fashions for spring and autumn collections were made from textiles that had been dyed to individual company requirements. Often they looked to Continental fashion houses for colour trends, ending up picking up on these quite late on. This led to waste as trends waned before all the the new products had been sold. It was felt that the proposed organisation could both reduce waste and improve colour matching. 

The British Colour Council was officially launched in April 1931 - it was non-profit making and had a board of representatives from throughout the industry. It operated by releasing two colour cards per year - one in spring for autumn collections and one in autumn for the spring collections of the following year.  In order to receive these cards, manufacturers had to become members and pay a subscription. The first colour card for autumn 1931 listed 60 shades. Examples of some of the early members include the Wholesale Textile Association, the London and Luton Bleachers and Dyers Association and a number of Irish linen firms. But it was not an entirely smooth launch, with many companies holding back from membership to see if it was going to work.

However, the resources were enough to release a second colour card in September 1931, and over time the Council's reputation grew - by 1949 membership stood at 2,554 companies. As the council progressed it branched out into more specialist activities, for example, the naming of new colours for Nottingham Lace products in 1939 (Rufford Rose, Portland Blue, Clumber Beige, Belvoir Blue). The Council also advised on colour schemes for the major state occasions of the 1930s such as the jubilee and coronation. On the death of King George V in 1936, the Council shared the correct colours for the mourning period - Regal Purple, Silver Grey. The Council's pronouncements became a regular reference in newspaper fashion pages and would take into account trends and events in their decisions. 

The relevance of this to Thirties Green is that the Council would have, to a certain extent, dictated what shades of the colour were in use, and how much of it. They may have been responsible for naming it, as each shade on the colour chart was given a specific name. In addition to the Nottingham Lace names given above, a range of colours was brought out to mark the 1937 coronation including the Sylko cotton favourite, Buckingham Lilac. Another of the new shades was called Holyrood Green.

In January 1932, the following paragraph appeared in the Yorkshire Post with reference to the Council's pronouncements:

"Acid greens of last year have been eclipsed by deep rich greens such as 'Lincoln' and 'Billiard' and attractive pale ones with a strong dash of yellow. One, the colour of very young leaves, is called 'Forester' and a fresh, very delicate version of 'Chartreuse'.

If a colour name begins with a geographical reference, it seems to be a fair guess that the British Colour Council will have come up with it going on the examples collected for this summary. Many seem to have aristocratic ties. I would be willing to wager that the Council came up with the Sylko colour 'Hunter's Green'.

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