| The
Hereford as it's name suggests has evolved from the indigenous Red
Cattle which roamed the Welsh Border Counties and the Western extremities
of England. The origins of a special breed of cattle in the County
of Herefordshire have been mentioned by various agricultural authors
as long ago as the early 1600's.During the 1700's and early 1800's
documented records of the breed were maintained by various individuals
in and around the Herefordshire area, leading to the publication of
the First Herd Book of Hereford Cattle in 1846 by Thomas Eyton of
Wellington, Shropshire. This First Herd Book contained the records
of 551 Bulls entered by 75 Breeders. |
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A Hereford Breeder's Sketch Book by Mrs B Turner |
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The
publication of subsequent Herd Books passed through a number
of hands until the formation of The Hereford Herd Book Society
on the 5th March 1878. In 1996, the 150th Anniversary of the
Publication of the First Herd Book, the Society changed it's
name to The Hereford Cattle Society.
The Society, in those early days serviced by retired breeder
Samuel Urwick, took on the role of publishing the Hereford
Herd Book since when only the First World War interrupted
it's appearance and then for only one Volume.
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1886, eight years after the Society's inauguration, entries
of cattle into the Herd Book were confined to those whose
Sire and Dam had been recorded in previous volumes .There
is no doubt that a great debt of gratitude is owed to
those early pioneers of this famous breed of cattle who
could surely never have envisaged the position of the
breed to-day. |
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are now at least 25 Countries around the World maintaining
their own Hereford Cattle records, the ancestry of each
and every calf born relating back to the cattle recorded
within those early volumes of the Herd Book. Some of the
earliest documented dates relating to the introduction
of the breed into Countries Overseas include:- 1775 -
Ireland, 1817 - USA, 1825 - Australia. |
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| COTMORE
- Royal Show Champion at the first Royal Show Oxford 1839 |
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| To-day
the International Organisation the "World Hereford Council" organises
a World Hereford Conference every 4 years and the European Hereford
producing Countries come together every 2 years for an informal gathering |
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