The Peterborough Agricultural Society
Information
1797: During a spring clean in 1922, Mr G.C.W. Fitzwilliam of Milton Hall found a sixteen-page printed book, dated 1798. The book recorded the rules of the Peterborough Agricultural Society and a report of its first meeting on this day in 1797. Until the discovery of this book, the society only had records dating back to the 1830s, which had been considered to be its founding. The book proved that wrong; it was in fact on Tuesday 10 January, at a meeting held at the Angel Inn, Peterborough - under the chairmanship of Mr William Waller - that the Peterborough Agricultural Society was formed. The Earl Fitzwilliam had been elected as the first president. At the first society show, the sum of 10 guineas was offered to any member of the public in general - most likely someone who worked the land for his livelihood - who would communicate to the society an effective method of destroying the wireworm in the land with perhaps an ulterior motive: two guineas were offered to the labourer in husbandry who had brought up the most numerous family without parochial assistance! (Tebbs, H.F., Peterborough, Oleander Press, 1979; Mellows, W.I., 'Peterborough's Municipal Jubilee', Peterborough Standard, 1924)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.