Hastings Rarities

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

Two articles in the August 1962 issue of the journal British Birds, one a statistical examination by John Nelder, the other an editorial by Max Nicholson and James Ferguson-Lees, made a case using several statistical measures that a series of records of rare birds collected within a 20-mile (32 km) radius of Hastings, in Kent and Sussex, south-east England, between 1892 and 1930, should be treated with suspicion. As a result, 29 bird species or subspecies were dropped from the British List (though most of these have subsequent acceptable records from elsewhere in Britain) and 550 records, relating to 80–90 species, were rejected. Although some of these rejected records were undoubtedly good ones, there was no easy way of distinguishing them.^[1]

Although doubts had been expressed privately for many years about the provenance of many specimens from the Hastings area, until the articles appeared there had been no systematic investigation of the records. The case made in British Birds was essentially statistical, concerning the unlikelihood of so many records of rare or new species being made within a limited area and limited time period when compared with a similar area and with earlier and later time periods. However, most records recommended for rejection were of specimens that had passed through the hands of George Bristow (1863–1947), a taxidermist and gunsmith of St Leonards-on-Sea in the borough of Hastings.

It was clear that Bristow was suspected of having been the perpetrator of a series of frauds, carried out from the 1890s over at least the first two, and possibly three, decades of the 20th century, through importing bird specimens from outside the British Isles, and selling them to wealthy ornithologists, such as Walter Rothschild, as having been procured from the Hastings area. John Nelder later estimated that Bristow had made about £7000, a considerable amount of money at the time, from this scheme, although there is considerable dispute as to how much Bristow might really have made from his sales.^[1]

The deletion of several taxa from the list had considerable repercussions. As the suspect records covered nearly four decades, many had been incorporated into books about birds in Britain, including major ornithological reference works, and there was resistance from some ornithologists to accepting the deletions. David Bannerman, in the late stages of completing his monumental The Birds of the British Isles (12 vols, 1933–63), decided to maintain his faith in the validity of the controversial Hastings records and ignore the decision to delete them from the list. Since then, most of the species dropped have been readmitted to the list on the basis of reliable subsequent records.

A Press Conference resulted in colourful, but garbled and absurdly exaggerated accounts of the affair. Officially there are now no records of rare birds around Hastings for 38 years. That’s no Cettis’ warblers, stilts, bee eaters, little bitterns, glossy ibis, nutcrackers, bluethroats, or any of the other disputed rarities, despite the area being prime habitat for them and highly attractive to migrants. Officially there were no tawny pipits for three decades, despite being recorded there both before and after the period in question. The absence of officially accepted records for so long is even more improbable than the apparent excess of published records which prompted this flawed analysis in the first place.

The case for fraud was presented in a colourful style, but ignored the First World War, its effects on shipping and meat imports, despite nearly a quarter (118) of the disputed records dating from wartime years. The case for fraud has been comprehensively challenged (Morris, 2026), listing 27 flaws that would normally result in a paper being rejected by independent reviewers. That list includes obvious things like adding sight records to the total of ‘fraudulent’ dead birds, double counting, illogical actions and selective avoidance of reports of the same species being seen by others. But Nicholson was the editor of the journal in which it was published. He was also hostile to both collectors and taxidermists. We are left with a significant distortion of ornithological history and an unsubstantiated case against George Bristow that serves to blacken his name and taint his profession

Fifty of the rarities are held in the Birmingham Museums Trust natural history collection.^[2]

• Cory's shearwater – since readmitted
• Slender-billed curlew – since readmitted but subsequently removed^[3]
• Grey-tailed tattler – since readmitted
• Terek sandpiper – since readmitted
• Semipalmated sandpiper – since readmitted
• Black lark – since readmitted
• Calandra lark – since readmitted
• Cetti's warbler – since readmitted
• Moustached warbler
• Olivaceous warbler – since readmitted
• Rüppell's warbler – since readmitted
• Sardinian warbler – since readmitted
• Brown flycatcher – since readmitted
• Collared flycatcher – since readmitted
• Masked shrike – since readmitted
• White-winged snowfinch

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

• Harrison, James M. (1968). Bristow and the Hastings Rarities Affair. A. H. Butler: St Leonards-on-Sea, U.K.
• Nelder, J. A. (August 1962). "A statistical examination of the Hastings Rarities". British Birds. 55 (8): 283–298.^[4]
• Nicholson, E. M.; Ferguson-Lees, I. J. (August 1962). "The Hastings Rarities". British Birds. 55 (8): 299–384.^[4]
• Seabrook, John. (2006). Ruffled feathers. Uncovering the biggest scandal in the bird world. The New Yorker, 29 May 2006: 50–61.
• Senn, Stephen. (2003). A conversation with John Nelder. Statistical Science 18(1): 118–131.

Morris, P.A. (2026) The Hastings Rarities: a major ornithological fraud that probably never was. MPM Ascot.