INTEODUCTION 



plaiij I have deemed it best to leave Mr. Mil- 

 ler's work just as he prepared it, and to incor- 

 porate Mr. Bustin's manuscript in this intro- 

 duction, so that Mr. Miller's history, while re- 

 maining intact, may be supplemented and cor- 

 rected in the light of this further reliable in- 

 formation : 



SOME FURTHER NOTES ON THE 



ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF 



THE TOMKINS HEREFORDS. 



As Managing Trustee of the King's-Pyon 

 Charities I had occasion to examine the old 

 parish books to clear up certain obscure points 

 relative to these ancient bequests. When thus 

 engaged I came upon much additional infor- 

 mation about the Tomkins families living in 

 the parish and neighborhood during the 

 eighteenth century. These old records show 

 that they took an active part in parochial 

 affairs as Overseers, Church-wardens, Road and 

 Bridge Makers, Apprenticing the Poor, etc. A 

 careful study of these documents with the 

 parish registers, added to what I already knew 

 about these old cattle breeders, enables me to 

 give a tolerably clear idea of their work and 

 the part taken by them in the development of 

 the cattle associated with their name that was 

 so famous. Read by the additional information 

 I obtained, the confused statements of eminent 

 authorities on Hereford cattle history can be 

 understood. The question has been so often 

 asked, "Did Tomkins found the Herefords?" 

 and answered in the affirmative and denied that 

 these fresh facts may be of interest to those 

 connected with the world-wide famed White- 

 faces. 



As early family and cattle history are closely 

 interwoven together, it will be necessary to 

 trace them concurrently, giving exact names 

 and dates. It was owing to Professor Low not 

 having carefully followed this course when in- 

 quiring into the origin and development of the 

 Tomkins Herefords that his account of it was 

 confused and chronologically inaccurate. When 

 Low wrote his "Domesticated Animals of the 

 British Isles," about 1840, he inquired as to 

 the origin of the improved Hereford cattle, and 

 found it centered in the Tomkins family, more 

 especially in Mr. Tomkins of Wellington Court, 

 near Hereford. He apparently hastily collected 

 some general information about the life and 

 work of what he believed to be one man and 

 applied it to Benjamin Tomkins, Jr., for as a 

 matter of fact there were two men of that name 

 of Wellington Court, father and son. Low was 

 not aware of this and treated their work as that 



of one man, namely, B. Tomkins, Jr. Unfor- 

 tunately, subsequent writers accepting his 

 account as correct, committed the same mis- 

 take. This serious error remained uncorrected 

 until Sinclair wrote the "History of Hereford 

 Cattle" in 1885, when the writer pjomted out 

 to him Low's mistake. Time did not then 

 allow me to minutely trace the matter, although 

 it was of the greatest importance. This I have 

 now done and am able to correct Low"s ex- 

 planation of facts. Low's confused account of 

 the origin and development of the Tomkins 

 Herefords was evidently due to the Misses 

 Tomkins. 



It is well known in the family that they 

 quite idolized their father, B. Tomkins, Jr. In 

 their estimation no one could do anything like 

 him. 



Twenty-five years after his death, 1840, 

 when inquiry was made, they ascribed all the 



improvement of the cattle to him, altogether 

 forgetting what they might have heard about 

 their grandfather's share in the work. 



They led Low, Eyton, Yeld and others to 

 believe that the famous cows "Mottle" and 

 "Pigeon,"' as w-ell as the "Silver Bull," were 

 selected by their father, whereas overwhelm- 

 ing evidence goes to prove that these typical 

 animals were the ones that their grandfather 

 began with in 1742, and were the foundation 

 of the Tomkins breed. 



The late W. A. Walker of the Upper House, 

 Wormsley, born in 1797, remembered B. Tom- 

 kins, Jr., and remembered the talk about the 

 Tomkins cattle having obtained considerable 

 notoriety many years before B. Tomkins, Jr., 

 was married, in 1772. Likewise, Miss L. Gal- 

 liers, born 1809, well remembered her grand- 

 father, William Galliers, at Frogdon, talking 

 about the intimacy between B. Tomkins, Sr", 

 and her great-grandfather, William Galliers of 



