With the spring show season just weeks away, Heritage Living editor Liz Harfull explores the remarkable history of agricultural shows in South Australia – a tradition that began within a few years of European settlement.
The concept of agricultural shows emerged in Britain in the 1700s as part of a movement to promote the latest farming practices and encourage innovation and excellence through lectures, demonstrations and competitions. This movement gained fresh imperative in the Australian colonies, as settlers grappled with learning how to farm and raise livestock in very different conditions.
The first agricultural societies were formed in Hobart and Sydney in 1822. What is often regarded as Australia’s first show or exhibition was staged at Parramatta the following year by the Agricultural Society of New South Wales. Coinciding with a regular market, it awarded prizes for the best Merino sheep, colonial-bred horses and cattle, and servants of ‘good conduct and faithful service’.
In South Australia, the first recorded exhibition was held in the yard of Fordham’s Hotel in Grenfell Street on 8 December 1840, just four years after the arrival of the first European settlers. A modest affair, it featured a small range of produce, including wheat, oats, barley, maize, cheese, potatoes and onions, and leather from the Peacock tannery.
Over the next 40 years the concept quickly spread across the colony, likely beginning with Mount Barker, where an agricultural association was formed in 1846. Around 1500 people attended its first show the following year at Nairne where a specially-erected pavilion housed ‘never equalled’ displays of grains, fruit and vegetables, cheese butter and hops, and two samples of wine from the previous year’s vintage. Horses and cattle were shown in a commodious yard, and a brass band composed of German musicians enlivened the scene.
By the 1860s, the concept had spread to Mount Gambier (1861) and Penola (1864) in the South East. By 1880 it had reached as far north as Quorn. It is estimated that by Federation in 1901, around a thousand shows were being held across the nation every year in towns large and small, and even farming districts with no established town at all. More followed in the years to come, with a spate of shows rippling into life on Eyre Peninsula and along the River Murray in the early 1900s, followed by further surges after the two world wars as new farmland was opened up through soldier settler and land development schemes.
In the early decades, many of them started out as mid-week ploughing competitions and demonstrations of the latest machinery, with a strong focus on livestock, particularly the working horses that powered so many essential activities. But the concept expanded rapidly into full one- two- and even three-day programs celebrating diverse agricultural, horticultural and floricultural achievements. Indoor facilities, or pavilions, were organised to showcase garden produce, practical craftsmanship such as harness making, and skills that women typically contributed to farm and family life. Butter and bread-making, preserving and needlework were among the most common, with special classes for hand-stitched handkerchiefs and petticoats.
Sometimes there were classes that allowed a farm family to exhibit collectively samples of everything they had grown, preserved and made that season. Or members of the local Agricultural Bureau branch might combine forces to display the district’s achievements in intricate displays of renaissance splendour. Patrons would crowd into halls and marquees to see the collections – tables and shelving groaning with home-cured meats, farmhouse butter and cheeses, sheaves of wheat, fresh and preserved fruit and vegetables, baskets of eggs, loaves of bread, bottles of homemade beers, wines and sauces, and jars of pickles and jams. As shows matured, more space was found for what was often referred to as ‘home industries’. By the 1920s, most South Australian shows had dedicated competitive sections for cookery and preserves, art and handicrafts, creating one of the most popular elements of agricultural shows today.
Remarkably, despite economic depressions, world wars, economic depressions, shrinking rural populations, falling volunteer numbers and pandemics, more than 580 agricultural shows are still held across the country every year. In South Australia, 49 show societies are making plans for the 2025-26 show season which kicks off at Crystal Brook on 9 August. Over coming months hundreds of volunteers and thousands of competitors will once again take part in a tradition that has been part of community life since 1840, helping to preserve and celebrate an important aspect of our heritage.
Go to a show!
To find your nearest country show visit https://www.sacountryshows.com/sa-country-shows/
