Chairman
Peter Edwards, consort Ann, Jane Guise, Mayor Bryan Chalker and Mayoress Glynys
A reception was held to
launch the Bath & West Show 2012 and to launch the shows 2012 sponsorship packages.
The reception was hosted by The Chairman of Bath & North East Somerset Council
Councillor Peter Edwards and his wife Anne.
Mayor
Bryan Chalker and Paul Hooper (Bath & West)
Guests included the Chief
Executive of The Bath & West Jane Guise, The Mayor of Bath Councillor Bryan Chalker
and Mayoress Glynys Chalker.
Interviews by Jane Guise and the Chairman Cllr. Edwards were given to Bath's new radio
station The Breeze who attended the launch reception.
The Bath & West Show was conceived in 1777 and was first held in the City of Bath,
nearly 200 years later in 1965 it moved to a larger sight at Shepton Mallet.
Ranjit
Mankoo (Sony Centre Bath), Nick and Sue Sandy (ST8) & Bath Mayor Bryan Chalker
You can find out more about The Bath & West
Show, The Breeze Bath radio
station and The Mayor of Bath
by clicking on their names to visit their web sites.
Part
history of the Bath & West Show
The Society never
forgets its origins and heritage, and possesses an excellent collection of historical
books and archival materials which are in the joint care and custody of the Honorary
Archivist and Honorary Librarian. Anyone interested in accessing the library or archives
should contact the Librarian or Archivist to arrange a visit. Both collections are in the
City of Bath Guildhall archive and more details are on the University of Bath Library's
website at www.bath.ac.uk/library/about/collections/bathandwest/
Similarly, the Society is proud of its Royal patronage, and maintains active links with
members of the Royal Family. Nowhere has this been more in evidence than during its
immensely successful Bicentenary celebrations. The Show President that year was HRH The
Prince of Wales. Links were further strengthened in 1980-81 when HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
took the Presidency. In March 1981 he became the first member of the Royal Family to chair
a Council meeting, and followed this with two days at the Show. This coincided with his
Presidency of the Royal Agricultural Society of the Commonwealth, which held its biennial
conference at Bath Guildhall the week after the Show and for which the Society arranged an
exhibition. Over seventy Commonwealth delegates attended the conference and, as part of
their programme, paid a visit to the Show, where the President hosted an evening reception
for them. In more recent years, HRH the Princess Royal was President in 1986, HRH the Duke
of Gloucester held the Presidency in 2002, and HRH the Countess of Wessex has accepted the
invitation to be President of the Society in 2010.
The permanent Showground, acquired in 1965, is under a constant steady process of
development with in excess of 71,000 square feet of undercover exhibition space, available
for use throughout the year. There is ample parking on site for all types of vehicle.
Permanent catering on-site can easily be supplemented by a broad range of mobile and
additional catering facilities, brought in when required. Further development of the site
is under active consideration at the time of writing, with the aim of improving building
standards & site facilities bringing it up to national exhibition standards. If all
goes ahead as planned, this will give the West Country a major exhibition space and
transform the Showground into a worthy competitor with the National Exhibition Centre at
Birmingham.
But through all the changes it has seen in well over 200 years, the Society has never lost
sight of its original aims, as noted by those "several gentlemen" who met in
Bath in the autumn of 1777: that the Society should encourage "Agriculture, Arts,
Manufactures and Commerce" in the counties of the West of England. Only the methods
adapt to suit changing times; our aims and focus remain unchanged, our link with our
founders still strong and unbroken.
In the Autumn season of the year 1777, several gentlemen met at the City of Bath, and
formed a Society for the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. in
the Counties of Somerset, Wilts, Gloucester, and Dorset, and in the City and County of
Bristol.
The meeting, at York House, was attended by twenty-two people. Among them were Edmund
Rack, the Society's first Secretary, William Matthews, who succeeded him, and Dr.
Falconer, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Physician to the General (now the Royal United)
Hospital in Bath. None of the twenty-two had any direct connexion with farming.
The annual subscription was to be not less than One Guinea, with life membership at 12
guineas, and a system of premiums, or prizes, was to be instituted, 'directed to
Improvements in Agriculture, Planting, and such Manufactures as are best adapted to these
Counties.'
In 1859, Josiah Goodwin, a journalist, took over as editor of the Society's Journal and
continued in this role until his death in 1889, combining it between 1866-82 with the role
of Secretary. Under Goodwin's expert and not ill-rewarded guidance - by 1863 he was being
paid £105 a year, £5 more than the Secretary of the time, H. St.J. Maule - the Journal
became a publication of real importance, reflecting the full range of activities in the
agricultural field. For those with the time to spare, these volumes of the 1860s and 1870s
make excellent reading. One can dip into any one of them and discover a great deal of
interesting information, well written-up and presented. It devoted a great deal of
attention to the dairying industry, which was developing rapidly, mainly in order to
supply the profitable London market.
The Society entered its second century with 1,033 members and £10,000 invested in
Government stock, a very different situation from twenty-five years earlier. A merger with
the Southern Counties Association had been arranged in 1868 and, after a hundred years of
fluctuating fortunes, the Bath and West was now unquestionably the strongest local society
in Britain. At the Centenary Meeting in Bath. the Secretary, Josiah Goodwin, said,
‘The founders of the Society were among the first, if not the very first, to promote
the welfare of the English people by a systematic co-operation between the tillers of the
soil and the cultivators of literature, art and science. They recognised the intimate
connection between agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. They took the trouble to
inquire into facts in various parts of the British dominions; they recorded the experience
of practical farmers; they endeavoured, according to the knowledge of those days, to dive
into the principles of nature, and illustrate facts and experience by science.'
In 1966 the Board's Chairman, Sir Gerald Beadle, pointed out that it would be ‘bad
business and bad public policy to occupy these magnificent two hundred acres permanently
with nothing in mind but a four-day annual Show. We can't farm it in the proper sense
because we need it for the Show at the height of the farming year. To use it merely as a
sheep ranch would be wasteful. We must devise and encourage suitable and profitable uses
for the Showground all the year round. |
