208 
The First Two Country Meetings of flu) 
named praiseworthy, and, in every respect (viewed with regard both to 
present and prospective benefits which must inevitably accrue from it), 
most excellent Society ; indeed, we may venture to affirm without the least 
fear of contradiction, that no event tending in any way to ameliorate the 
condition of the British yeoman, or advance the cause of agriculture, has 
produced that almost universal approbation which this Institution has done. 
In those days before railways, exceptional efforts were made 
by visitors to reach the Show-ground, and we have a glimpse of 
these in a communication from Mr. George Drewry, of Holker, 
Carke-in-Cartmel, Lancashire, who was at that time living in the 
neighbourhood of Tavistock, and who has attended nearly all 
the Society’s meetings. Mr. Drewry journeyed to Oxford in 
company with Mr. Benson, the Duke of Bedford’s agent, Mr. 
George Turner, and several others, and states that they put up 
at Exeter the first night, on the second they reached Cheltenham, 
and on the third day they arrived at Oxford, travelling by coach 
part of the way and posting the rest. “ The Show,” he adds, 
“ was considered to be a wonderful one ; there had been nothing 
like it before, and many people said there would never be another 
like it.” 
Another old member of the Society, Mr. Kersley Fowler, 
writes : — “ The Duke of Bedford was very desirous that his 
tenants should visit the first Meeting of the Society, and I re- 
collect seeing Mr. Bennett, the Duke’s steward, Mr. Thomas 
of Bletsoe, and others — about thirty altogether, coming in two 
coaches-and-four to Aylesbury from Woburn, and posting on 
to Oxford, ordering dinner at the White Hart at Aylesbury on 
their return, and bringing with them interesting accounts of the 
wonders of the great exhibition. I myself went on the ‘ dickey ’ 
of a yellow postchaise, with three friends of my father’s from 
Northamptonshire stowed inside the chaise, and we came home 
nearly starved to death, from the difficulty we had in obtaining 
food at Oxford.” 
An even more striking illustration of the difficulties attend- 
ing the locomotion of men and animals at that period is given 
by Mr. Fowler in his entertaining Recollections of Old Country 
Life, published quite recently by Messrs. Longman : — 
I can perfectly remember my father being applied to, one evening in June 
of 1839, to arrange for the reception of some Shorthorn cattle which were 
going to the Oxford Show. These animals had come in a freight boat from 
London, by the Aylesbury branch of the Grand Junction Canal. He sent 
them to the Prebendal Farm, which I some time afterwards tenanted for 
over thirty years. This farm was alongside the turnpike road to Oxford ; 
and I have not forgotten the beauty of those animals, which far exceeded 
in style and character any that I had ever seen before. The animals, I am 
informed, were driven from the residence of their breeder, Mr. Bates, at 
