Norman Chaffer

Norman Chaffer OAM, FRZS, RAOU (1899 – 22 November 1992) was an Australian businessman, a bird photographer and an amateur ornithologist. He was a pioneer of colour cinematography and won many awards.

Early life and training

Chaffer was born in Willoughby, Sydney, on 15 March, 1899 to Walter Chaffer and Hannah (née Bibby) and the family lived at Valley View in Victoria Avenue. In 1912 he qualified in the secondary entry examination at Chatswood Public School, and in 1917 passed the Technical Education exam, achieving good grades in algebra, geometry, mathematics, and trigonometry before his final year, 1920. In November 1928 he became lifelong director of leather manufacturer which his father started in 1887. At its registration as a company in 1928 W. Chaffer & Sons Pty Ltd. held a capital of £20,000 (a 2025 value of A$1.6M).

Ornithologist

In 1918, at age nineteen, Chaffer was a member of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, for which he was appointed Honorary Ranger, under the Birds and Animals Protection Act of that year, by Chief Secretary Charles Oakes. In 1924, as the youngest member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, his display of lanten slide photogrpahs garnered the praise of his colleagues as "the best work of the kind done in Australia by anyone so young." The folowing year, the Union made a presentation to Chaffer "to honour of his marriage." Alec Chisholm, also a member of RAOU cited Chaffer's bird sightings in his column "Ways of the Wild" in Sydney's Daily Telegraph, as did James Devaney in Queensland's Daily Mercury and Townsville Daily Bulletin, and Charles Fenner, writing as 'Tellurian' in The Australasian

In the 1930s, and living in Chatswood, he made numbers of lectures, screenings, and presentations at venues including Sydney's Lyceum Club, the Education Department's art gallery for Bird Week, Emerson Hall, The Royal Zoological Society's auditorium in Science House, He produced a series of films that were greeted by Chisholm as "a good deal more instructive than anything that comes out of Hollywood." His 1936 film of the white-bellied sea eagle was distributed by Cinesound.

Chaffer was a frequent contributor of his bird photography to newspapers, magazines and journals as diverse as National Geographic, the Gould League Annual, Emu, The Australasian, and The Australian Women's Weekly. He authored In Quest of Bowerbirds (Rigby, 1984) which was illustrated with his photographs. He discovered in the mid-1930s that male bowerbirds 'paint' the sticks of their bower with "powdered charcoal mixed with the bird's saliva," applied with a brush or wad , made "from a bundle of fibrous bark about two inches long. Selecting a piece from this bundle, the bird drew it into its bill with a sort of nibbling action until it formed a wall about a quarter of an inch across, and with this proceeded to paint the bower."

As a member of the RAOU, Chaffer contributed to its journal Emu, and joined the Union's camps, on the Murrumbidgee near Leeton in 1939, and its congresses.

Death

Norman Chaffer died on 23 November 1992 in Sydney.

Memberships and awards

References

  1. ↑ "Examination Results". The Sun. No. 801. New South Wales, Australia. 20 January 1913. p. 10 (Final Extra). Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. ↑ "Technical Education". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 24, 989. New South Wales, Australia. 7 February 1918. p. 9. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "Technical Education". The Daily Telegraph. No. 12395. New South Wales, Australia. 31 January 1919. p. 8. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "Technical Education". The Daily Telegraph. No. 12, 705. New South Wales, Australia. 30 January 1920. p. 7. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ↑ "New Companies: New South Wales". Daily Commercial News And Shipping List. No. 12, 547. New South Wales, Australia. 21 November 1928. p. 4 (Weekly Summary). Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. ↑ Centre, The University of Melbourne eScholarship Research. "Chaffer, Norman - Bright Sparcs Biographical entry". www.asap.unimelb.edu.au. The University of Melbourne eScholarship Research Centre. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
  7. ↑ "New Companies". Daily Commercial News And Shipping List. No. 12, 542. New South Wales, Australia. 15 November 1928. p. 5. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ {cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247000266 |title=Exotic Birds |newspaper=The Daily Telegraph |volume=4, |issue=260 |location=New South Wales, Australia |date=15 December 1934 |accessdate=27 October 2026 |page=10 |via=National Library of Australia}}
  9. ↑ "Birds and Animals Protection Act, 1918". Government Gazette Of The State Of New South Wales. No. 7. New South Wales, Australia. 19 January 1923. p. 194. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ↑ "Personal". The Daily Telegraph. No. 13, 866. New South Wales, Australia. 17 May 1924. p. 6. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ↑ "Personal". The Daily Telegraph. No. 14, 338. New South Wales, Australia. 21 November 1925. p. 10. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ↑ Chisholm, A. H. (9 October 1926). "Ways of the Wild". The Daily Telegraph. No. 14, 613. New South Wales, Australia. p. 20. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  13. ↑ "Bush Notes". The Australasian. Vol. CXXXVII, no. 4, 478. Victoria, Australia. 3 November 1934. p. 47 (Metropolitan Edition). Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. ↑ Devaney, James (18 April 1932). "Nature Notes". Daily Mercury. Vol. 66, no. 92. Queensland, Australia. p. 10. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. ↑ Devaney, James (20 April 1932). "Nature Notes". The Townsville Daily Bulletin. Vol. LIV, no. 95. Queensland, Australia. p. 4. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. ↑ "Tellurian"; Sherland, M.S.R. (18 March 1933). "Nature And Science: Artistic Bower Birds". The Australasian. Vol. CXXXIV, no. 4, 393. Victoria, Australia. p. 42. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  17. ↑ "Near And Far". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 832. New South Wales, Australia. 2 June 1930. p. 4. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  18. ↑ "Lyceum Club". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 28, 836. New South Wales, Australia. 6 June 1930. p. 4. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  19. ↑ "Bird Week". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 29, 522. New South Wales, Australia. 17 August 1932. p. 10. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  20. ↑ "Bird Week Exhibits". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 29, 528. New South Wales, Australia. 24 August 1932. p. 8. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  21. ↑ "Advertising". The Sun. No. 7372. New South Wales, Australia. 16 August 1933. p. 20 (Last Race Edition). Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. ↑ "To-Day". The Sydney Morning Herald. No. 30, 123. New South Wales, Australia. 20 July 1934. p. 12. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  23. ↑ Chisholm, A.H. (29 November 1931). "Hazards In The Tree Tops: How Sydney's Bird Photographers Do Their Work". The Sun. No. 1496. New South Wales, Australia. p. 17. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  24. ↑ "The Talk of Sydney". The Daily Telegraph. Vol. 1, no. 291. New South Wales, Australia. 21 January 1932. p. 6. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  25. ↑ 'Peregrine' (4 April 1936). "Birds of Prey". The Mercury. Vol. CXLIV, no. 20, 418. Tasmania, Australia. p. 5. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  26. ↑ Cayley, Neville W. (29 August 1936). "Australian Bird Lore: Babies Without Bother". The Age. No. 25389. Victoria, Australia. p. 5. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  27. ↑ "A London Romance". Weekly Times. No. 3544. Victoria, Australia. 31 August 1935. p. 28. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  28. ↑ "A Gould League Annual". Shepparton Advertiser. Vol. I, no. 426. Victoria, Australia. 21 September 1935. p. 9. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  29. ↑ "Book Of Birds: Habits Described and Pictured". The Sun. No. 1695. New South Wales, Australia. 22 September 1935. p. 16. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  30. ↑ Chaffer, Norman (28 April 1934). "Bird-Seeking In Swamp Land". The Australasian. Vol. CXXXVI, no. 4, 451. Victoria, Australia. p. 43. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  31. ↑ "Shrine Of Remembrance". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 27, 358. Victoria, Australia. 25 April 1934. p. 10. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  32. ↑ "The Dawn Service". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 27, 360. Victoria, Australia. 27 April 1934. p. 8. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  33. ↑ "Nature Notes and Queries: An Avian Artist". The Argus (Melbourne). No. 27, 826. Victoria, Australia. 25 October 1935. p. 4. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  34. ↑ "Important Camp At Leeton". Daily Advertiser. New South Wales, Australia. 17 July 1939. p. 7. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  35. ↑ "Ornithologists' Camp And Congress". The Murrumbidgee Irrigator. Vol. XXIV, no. 53. New South Wales, Australia. 11 July 1939. p. 4. Retrieved 27 October 2026 – via National Library of Australia.
  36. ↑ Keast, Allen. (1994). Obituary. Norman Chaffer OAM, FRZS, FRAOU, 1899–1992. Emu 94: 62.
  37. ↑ Robin, Libby. (2001). The Flight of the Emu: a hundred years of Australian ornithology 1901–2001. Melbourne University Press: Carlton. ISBN 0-522-84987-3