This Show was held at Victoria Park in 1899
Agricultural Show 1899
The photograph was taken from the railway embankment before Park Drive was built. The show took place on the 19th & 20th of July as was reported in the Leamington Spa Courier of 22nd July (the Courier was published on a Saturday then).
This was the Society’s 68th show and the last time it had been held in Leamington Spa was in 1890, on Welch’s Meadow.
If you take a close look at the original photograph you can see the names of the implement exhibitors, Glover and Co from Warwick, Gloucester Carriage and Wagon, Tange’s Pumps, and Sellors from Coventry. The canvas awning is from Johnsons of Gloucester.
The attendance for the two days was 5,000 & 12,000, and to quote the Courier, “But for the extreme heat which was Tropical in its intensity, the attendance would have been considerably larger”.
The exhibits and competitions were numerous, including jumping and driving, agricultural horses, hackneys and ponies, cattle, hunting horses, shoeing competitions and dairy produce. There were butter making competitions, open to all pupils who attended the Warwickshire County Council Travelling Dairy School, and the winner was Miss L Digwood from Henley-in Arden.
There were awards to Stockmen, Shepherds, Wagoners, and Labourers resident in the county. Glovers of Warwick won the prize for the best new or improved implement for agricultural purposes, a cream separator.
On the second day of the show, the Band of the Coldstream Guards gave two concerts in Jephson Gardens. The Courier, in a report that ran to eight columns, summed up with the words, “The Highest Encomiums were passed upon the band and its performance and …… these were well deserved”.
Derek Billings