2-982-191 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mowing, Shearing, and Cottagers' Flower Show, at Coleshill Park - the Distribution of the Prizes, 1858. 'For fourteen years the noble owner of Coleshill, the Earl of Radnor - with the view not only of exciting honourable and honest emulation among labourers in the several departments of agricultural skill, but of inducing them to attend carefully to their families and homes, and to devote their leisure hours to the cultivation of their gardens, by which their own domestic comfort might be enhanced - has held an annual gathering of these classes in his park, and awarded to them such prizes as their skill and good conduct merited... The exhibition of vegetables and flowers by cottagers was remarkably good; and so keen was the competition that the judges experienced considerable difficulty in making their awards...The Earl of Radnor said..."Although it is good to have skill in shearing and in mowing...there is something more you should all strive to acquire, and that is honesty, sobriety, and truthfulness. My recommendation is that you should practise these things. Every man can be sober, every man can be honest, and every man can be truthful".' From "Illustrated London News", 1858.