Opening of the 150th Grafton Show
Saturday, 20 April 2024
Grafton Showground
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
Giinagay, Jingiwallah[1]
In greeting you in the languages of the Bundjalung, Gumbaynggirr, and Yaegl, Traditional Owners of the beautiful lands and waterways that surround us, I pay my respects to their Elders, past, present, and emerging.
Member for Clarence[2]; Member for Page[3]; Mayor[4] and representatives of the Clarence Valley Council; members of the Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society and the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW[5]; families, friends, distinguished guests all,
In 1866, 7 years after the incorporation of the Municipality of Grafton in 1859[6], the first meeting[7] of the newly formed Clarence Pastoral, Agricultural, and Horticultural Association was held in the old School of Arts building.[8]
With the chief goal of advancing local agriculture and related industries, they immediately set about planning for an annual competitive exhibition of local goods and, 8 months later, placed an advertisement in the Clarence and Richmond Examiner declaring ‘The First Exhibition of Stock, Produce, Implements, etc. will take place at Tattersall’s Hotel, Grafton, on Tuesday and Wednesday the 23rd and 24th April 1867’[9].
This year, celebrating 150 shows, Grafton is writing itself into the history book of Agricultural Shows around New South Wales, along with 9 other Shows who have had 150-year celebrations.
Since that first Show here in Grafton in 1867, there have only been 7 years in which the Show didn’t go ahead. That is quite remarkable When you think of the history of our country over those 157 years, with 2 World Wars and not one but 2 pandemics – the first one being the Spanish flu following the First World War[10].
One thing which strikes me about country Shows is how closely they are linked with the history of the town. That is not surprising but the history of the Show itself unravels some fascinating stories.
For example, at the first Show, the Stock were displayed in pens on the vacant ground next to Tatershall’s.[11]
The weather on the first day of the Show was “the best of ‘Queen’s’ weather.[12] The second day, however, which included the stock judging, was not so great: 6 inches of rain fell, and the land where the livestock were kept turned into a quagmire.[13]
Last time Dennis and I were here, it was raining (I remember watching Troy Cassar-Daley from under an umbrella!), such that it got around town that it might have been me that brought it. I promise it wasn’t! And if it was, it is nowhere near 6 inches.
The organisers of that first Show were to be commended for their enthusiasm, which was not quite matched by the town’s response: prizes were offered in at least 14 categories where there no entrants: for wool, cotton, tobacco, sugar, preserved meats, soap, candles, brooms, silk, starch, bread from maize, castor oil, flax, and indigenous fibres.[14] In other cases first prize went to the sole entrant.
Nonetheless, the optimism of those organisers for the future of the Show turned out to be right on the money. So quickly did its reputation spread, that the last 4 Governors of the 19th century attended, or opened, the Grafton Show.[15] And Governors have kept coming, and here we are today, with 149 Shows since.
In celebrating this history, we celebrate the generations of people involved in its organisation, including Ann Ford-Edwards, a fourth-generation life member of the Society. The corrugated iron pavilion affectionately known as ‘The Barn’ – erected in 1884[16], is named in honour of her grandfather and past president, Thomas John Ford.
Ann began as a Show steward in 1964, she was a showgirl in 1972, has served various stints as Secretary, and has spent much of her life, including last week, busily preparing for the Show.[17] It’s in her blood, it seems: her daughter Hayley is current Secretary and, her grandson, I believe, an entrant in this year’s Boy of the Barn: three generations in one Show!
They exemplify, but also typify, the many tireless volunteers who bring us the Show every year – come rain or shine; every one of them – past, present, and future – deserves a round of the heartiest applause.
This Show is a great tradition that reminds us that, in Grafton and surrounds, there is much to be proud of and even more to celebrate.
As the Patron of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I now declare officially open this, the 150th, Grafton Show.
On with the Show!
[1] Giinagay/Ginagay is ‘Hello’ in Gumbayngirr and Yaegrr (the language of the Yaegl); Jingiwallah is ‘hello’ in Bundjalung.
[2] Mr (Richie) Richard Williamson MP, Member for Clarence, Parliament of NSW and Patron, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society
[3] Mr Kevin Hogan MP, Federal Member for Page, Parliament of Australia and Patron, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society
[4] Councillor Peter Johnstone, Mayor, Clarence Valley Council and Patron, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society
[5] including Mr Brian Badgery, Patron, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society, representing the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW; Mr Des Harvey, Patron, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society; Mrs Leone Roberts, Vice President, Clarence Pastoral & Agricultural Society
[6] Brett J. Stubbs, A Thematic History of the City of Grafton: Volume 2 of Community-based Heritage Study, NSW Heritage Office/Clarence Valley Council 2007, pp.19-20, available here.
[7] The meeting was held on the 17 July 1866: ‘Clarence Pastoral, Agricultural, and Horticultural Association’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 24 July 1866, p.2, available here
[8] The building, which used to stand near the corner of Victoria and Prince Street, was the first brick-built building begun in Grafton, its foundation stone laid in 1859; it was in use by 1860 and extended in the 1870s, but by the 1890s had fallen into debt and was closed in 1897 and the building later demolished. Meanwhile, on the other side of the river, another School of Arts had been formed in South Grafton; a building for it was constructed in 1892 and opened in a ceremony attended by Lord and Lady Jersey, Edmund Barton, and John See; it remains standing today, part of the New School of Arts Neighbourhood House Inc: Stubbs, op. cit., pp.21,27-28,32-33.
[9] Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 12 March 1867, p.4, available here. An exhibition of local goods destined to be shown at the Melbourne Intercolonial Exhibition was held in 1866 a month before the formation of the Clarence Pastoral, Agricultural, and Horticultural Association: ‘Closing of the Intercolonial Exhibition’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 5 June 1866, p.2, available here
[10] ‘First Exhibition’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner and New England Advertiser, 30 April 1867, p.2, available here
[11] loc. cit.
[12] loc. cit.
[13] loc. cit.
[14] ‘First Exhibition’, ibid.
[15] Lord Carrington in 1886, Lord Jersey in 1892, Sir Robert Duff in 1894, and Lord Hampden in 1896: ‘Clarence Pastoral and Agricultural Society’s Show’, Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 15 May 1886, p.1030, available here; ‘The Governor at Grafton’, Australian Star, 7 May 1892, p.6, available here; ‘The Governor’s Visit – The Agricultural Show’, Queenslander, 28 April 1894, p.774, available here; ‘Agricultural Society’s Show’, Clarence and Richmond Examiner, 2 May 1896, p.8, available here. Following Federation: Sir Harry Rawson in 1903, Sir Gerald Strickland in 1914, Sir Dudley de Chair in 1927, Sir Philip Game in 1934; Lord Gowrie (as Governor-General) in 1937; Sir John Northcott in 1954: ‘Grafton Show’, Richmond River Express and Tweed Advertiser, 8 May 1903, p.4, available here; ‘Governor at Grafton’, Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 1914, p.20, available here; ‘Grafton Show Official Opening by Governor’, Northern Star, 6 May 1927, p.5, available here; ‘Grafton Show Opening by Governor: Solving Hard Times’, Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s Advocate, 20 April 1934, p.6, available here; ‘Governor-General Opens Grafton Show’, Daily Examiner, 16 April 1937, p.6, available here; ‘Third Visit by Governor’, Daily Examiner, 30 December 1954, p.3, available here
[16] The pavilion was built by J W Pender of Maitland, in the style of the Prince Alfred Exhibition Building in Sydney, on the site of the old showground, near the racecourse. It was moved to its current location in 1907: monumentaustralia.org.au/thomas-john-ford
[17] Telephone conversation with Mrs Ford-Edwards; ‘Dedication Shows Reward for Life’, Daily Telegraph online, 22 May 2019, available here