Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales

For other uses, see Royal Agricultural Society.

The Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales was founded on the 5th July 1822, when a group of Sydney's leading citizens formed the Agricultural Society of NSW with the aim of "furthering the quality of Australia's primary production by means of contests and competitions".

Eleven officers were elected and the Society staged its first Show at Parramatta the following year. At the time, Parramatta was the bread bowl of Australia, the agricultural hub of the colony, which was struggling to provide for its population of 30,000, half of them convicts.

Despite its initial success the Society lapsed in 1834 due to the pressure of drought and economic depression, but re-formed in 1857 under the name of the ‘Cumberland Agricultural Society.’ In 1859 the Society re-named itself the Agricultural Society of NSW. The Society’s Shows, known at the time as Exhibitions, were held at Parramatta until 1868 and subsequently moved to Prince Alfred Park.

Shows continued at Prince Alfred Park until 1881. From the 1870s the Society faced financial difficulty and high rent and empty coffers forced the RAS to look for a new venue. The City Council offered 40 acres of unpromising, sandy scrub at Moore Park for an annual rent of £10. With the help of the NSW Government and public subscriptions the Society built a showground, which became home to the Show for the next 115 years.

In the intervening years, the Society had become the Royal Agricultural Society, an honour bestowed by Queen Victoria in 1891.

While the bubonic plague did not stop the Show when it struck Sydney in 1900, the influenza epidemic of 1919 caused chaos. The Show was cancelled and Moore Park buildings were used as a temporary hospital and morgue. During World War II the Sydney Royal Easter Show was cancelled when Moore Park was requisitioned for military use, and some 700,000 troops passed through its grounds.

By the late 1980s the Sydney Royal Easter Show had outgrown its Moore Park facilities. In 1994 the NSW Government approved its relocation to Sydney Olympic Park at Homebush. The first Show was held there in 1998.

Today the Show is Australia’s biggest annual event, injecting more than $600m into the NSW economy and attracting close to a million visitors with its entertainment, exhibitions, competitions and vivid depictions of rural life.

Personnel

References

  1. Who's Who in Australia 2007 pp 1622 Crown Content
  2. "Mr Winter David WARDEN (1860 - 1936)". Parliament of NSW. Retrieved 22 January 2013.
  3. "ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 24 January 1902. p. 3. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
  4. "ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.". The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 14 March 1903. p. 10. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
  5. "New Wine Kiosk for the Royal Agricultural Society's Grounds, Sydney.". Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW : 1870 - 1907) (NSW: National Library of Australia). 2 November 1901. p. 38. Retrieved 12 January 2014.

External links

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