270 
The Progress of Legislation against 
At last, on February 7, 1806, an important deputation from 
the county of Leicester was received by the Prime Minister, Earl 
Russell. Mr. Albert Pell, a member of the deputation, address- 
ing the Premier, put him and the Government in possession of 
facts with reference to previous invasions of rinderpest in Eng- 
land. in the last of which the disease had been stamped out by 
slaughter. This was followed by the great national Conference 
instigated by Mr. Pell, held in St. James’s Hall on the next 
day, and presided over by the Earl of Lichfield. The resolutions 
passed at the Conference were on the following day submitted to 
the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, and so forcibly were the 
views of the Conference enunciated that a Bill was introduced for 
stamping out the plague, and for compensating from a special 
rate the owners of the cattle killed for that purpose. When 
introducing the Bill Sir George Grey stated that a great change 
had come over his mind within a very brief space of time 
respecting the cattle plague. The Bill was rapidly passed through 
both Houses of Parliament, and received the Royal Assent on 
February 20. Its provisions were promptly enforced, and their 
effect was soon seen : the cattle plague was exterminated, and 
simultaneously the country was rendered nearly free from both 
foot-and-mouth disease and pleuro-pneumonia by the end of the 
year. 
The agitation just referred to gave birth to the Chambers ot 
Agriculture. Mr. Charles Clay, of Walton, Wakefield, addressed 
a letter (dated January 26, 1866) to Bell’s Weekly Messenger 
suggesting that a meeting should be held at the Salisbury Hotel, 
Fleet Street, to consider the desirability of establishing a 
“ Farmers’ League or Chamber of Agriculture.” The meeting took 
place on February 6, two days before the Cattle Plague Confer- 
ence, but only nine persons attended. I was called to the chair, 
and drew up the resolution, setting forth the object of the 
Chambers, which has formed the basis of their operations until 
the present time. It was that “ the object of the Central Cham- 
ber of Agriculture shall be to watch over all measures affecting 
the agricultural interests both in and out of Parliament, and to 
take such action thereon as may seem desirable for the benefit 
of agriculture.” The necessity of such an organisation had long 
been felt. There were numerous farmers’ clubs in different parts 
of the kingdom besides that in London, yet no effort had been 
made to bring them into harmony with each other so that their 
opinions could be ascertained upon any great question, affecting 
their general interest as a body, until the establishment of the 
Chambers of Agriculture. The basis of their operations was of 
the most comprehensive kind, embracing as it did the interests 
