FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



Although she looked for no reward beyond the 

 thought that she was doing some useful work for 

 her fellow-creatures, she did not the less appreciate 

 any little attention or any kindly recognition of 

 her labours. Therefore, when the late King and 

 Queen Alexandria, then Prince and Princess of 

 Wales, visited the show, I asked our President 

 (Lord Clarendon) if he would suggest to the 

 Royal party a visit to the gallery over which 

 Miss Ormerod was presiding. The Prince and 

 Princess, with their daughters, gladly acted upon 

 the President's suggestion, and spent some time 

 in the building, deeply interested in all Miss 

 Ormerod had to tell them. Both Prince and 

 Princess, with the genial good nature which never 

 failed them, conveyed to Miss Ormerod their 

 cordial appreciation of her work in a way which 

 greatly delighted her, and she assured me that 

 the interview would always be one of her most 

 happy memories. 



Miss Ormerod received many honours from 

 foreign and other public bodies, and the Bath 

 and West Society conferred their honorary member- 

 ship upon her and her sister, whilst almost the 

 last distinction bestowed upon her was the 

 honorary degree of Doctor of Laws in the 

 University of Edinburgh, this being the first 

 occasion on which the University had ever 

 admitted a woman to this degree. The Dean of 

 Faculty, on presenting her, truly said of her : 

 " Her labours have been crowned with such 

 success that she is entitled to be hailed as the 

 protectress of agriculture and the fruits of the 

 earth a beneficent Demeter of the nineteenth 



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