a short history of agricultural education and research

1862 The Royal Agricultural Hall was erected in Islington to house theSmithfield shows which remained there until 1938. The buildingsuffered a sad decline, part of it ending up as a bingo hall in the mid-1960s but was saved from demolition and is now Grade II listed andhouses the Business Design Centre.1960 Re-named the Royal Smithfield Club.1800 Farmer’s Magazine was published in Edinburgh. It had a Scottish bias but didembrace English reports. It folded in 1825.1806 House of Sutton, Reading, BerkshireThe now major seed company was established by John Sutton (1777-1863) anddeveloped into Sutton & Sons by his sons, Martin Hope and Alfred.1840 Seed testing laboratory and trials beds were established.1890sThe company provided financial support to the Agricultural Departmentof University College, Reading.1994 The agricultural business was acquired by Limagrain, founded in Francein 1946, the largest seed company in Europe and now part of theinternational Vilmorin group.1807 Evans and Ruffy’s Farmers’ JournalThis was the first newspaper to be exclusively devoted to agriculture and declinedonly after 1825 when Benjamin Holditch ceased his editorial role. It folded as anindependent title in 1832 when it was incorporated into the general publicationBell’s Weekly Messenger which ran from 1796-1896.1809 The Utility of Agricultural Knowledge to the Sons of the Landed Proprietors ofEngland, and to Young Men Intended for Estate Agents With an Account of anInstitution formed for Agricultural Pupils in Oxfordshire. By a Scotch Farmerand Land-Agent, resident in that County by John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843). Loudon, better known for his work in horticulture and landscape design,set up what is sometimes referred to as an early ‘agricultural college’ on the GreatTew estate in Oxfordshire. This was, however, little more than taking a smallnumber of working pupils into his home, an account of which is to be found inthe above pamphlet. The venture ran from 1808 to 1811.1813 Sir Humphrey Davy (1778-1917), who needs no introduction as a pioneeringchemist and inventor of the Davy lamp for coal miners, was commissioned by theBoard of Agriculture (see 1793) to give a series of talks which were laterpublished as Elements Of Agricultural Chemistry In A Course Of Lectures.1826 British Farmer’s MagazineThis periodical was edited for the first ten years by the shorthorn authority, Rev.Henry Berry.19