Robert Bakewell, agriculturalist: commemorating 300 years since his birth

I have been reminded that Friday 23 May marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Robert Bakewell of Dishley. Last week I went to an excellent talk about Bakewell, his work, and his times, and remembered that a long time ago, when this blog was in its infancy, I wrote a couple of posts, after being taken on a walk around the disused church at Dishley, and the estate, one about the estate itself, and one about Robert Bakewell. I’ve also posted previously about the plaque on Warner’s Lane, Loughborough, that mentions him in connection with the Unitarian church of which he was a part.

The mosaic restored in 2023 by Dishley Residents' Association and Artisans at Dishley Grange. Funded by LCC Member's Highway Fund

Dishley Grange, a private farm, and home to some of the artisans mentioned above

So, for the forthcoming anniversary, I thought I’d take a different look at Robert Bakewell … well, a different look at Robert Bakewell the agriculturist, not any other Robert Bakewell! However, I was initially thwarted, when looking through one of the books in my collection [1], I found references in the index to Bakewell, the Derbyshire town, but also to Robert Bakewell – one a piece of text, the other a black and white photograph. Excitedly I leafed through to find the relevant pages, but they turned out to be about that other famous Robert Bakewell, he from Staffordshire, who created fancy ironwork, of which I have seen the gates in Derby cathedral, and the railings and birdcage at Melbourne Hall (which I’ve previously written about.)  

But what of Dishley’s Robert Bakewell? He wasn’t named in the book’s index, but I did manage to find a couple of paragraphs which the author had written about him. The first appeared in the section on The Shires, in chapter 1:

“The Wold country pastures were long famed for the excellent wool they produced; it was known as the best in England and laid the foundations of the county’s woollen industry. In the eighteenth century Robert Bakewell of Loughborough introduced the new Leicester type of sheep, and the county’s reputation for high-grade wool was still further enhanced. Today this breed is found wherever wool is extensively produced.”

The next quotation comes from the section entitled Lowland and Wold, which appears in Chapter 3 [with my paragraph breaks]:

On his virtual tour along the River Soar, Ingram moves south from Bunny, “to Dishley Grange where lived an eighteenth-century worthy who did as much for England as any of the great engineers or explorers. 

Here lived Robert Bakewell whose genius as a breeder of sheep and cattle provided the food for the rapidly expanding populations of the new industrial centres and without which the work of the great inventors and engineers could never have materialised. 

He started the new-fangled idea of irrigation, and surrounded the fields of his model farm with canals, and spent a great portion of his seventy years travelling round the country, examining stock, evolving new breeds out of old nondescript types. 

He established the science of pedigree stock-breeding, becoming the greatest pioneer of agricultural science in the world. The sixteen shillings stud-fee which he charged for hiring out his first rams for the season increased until it rose to 800 and then 1,200 guineas. Now most of the stock in England shows the effects of his years of effort. 

To Dishley Grange came visitors of high and low degree from all over Europe, to learn about his discoveries. Yet his country appreciated him so little that twice he nearly went bankrupt, and had to be helped by his friends.”

These two quoted sections on Robert Bakewell, the agriculturist, together run to nearly 300 words, compared with the text on Robert Bakewell the ironwork maker which runs to just over 50 words. Clearly “… his country appreciated him so little …” that he didn’t even appear in the book’s index! I mustn’t grumble too much – after all, I found the Robert Bakewell I was looking for, and the book did actually have an index!

We learned from the above entry that Robert Bakewell was concerned with the breeding of sheep and cattle, and irrigation. In addition, he also improved the Leicester cart horse, to become the forerunner of the Shire horse, and he also tried his hand at pig-breeding. However, whether or not he was involved with Hugo Meynell of the Quorn Hunt in selectively breeding fox hounds is unclear.

So, the beginning of the paragraph which follows the above extract about Bakewell is a statement which makes me cross!! And reminds me of why I write this blog, write books about Loughborough, lead guided walks around the town, and share my love of Loughborough through presentations. Here it is:

“Loughborough is the second biggest town in the county, but it is not a particularly interesting place …”

I beg to differ!! Ok, so Ingram does continue that sentence with “apart from its bellfoundry.” But this still doesn’t do our wonderful town justice!!

However, to give Ingram his due, while he might have had an intimate knowledge of the hamlets, villages, towns, and cities in the counties of the north Midlands, he would not have been able to share this in much detail in just 116 pages!

Here’s hoping that the expectations of the writer of the book’s flyleaf came to fruition:

“Text and pictures together should win many new friends for a part of England which is less visited or appreciated than its riches, both of landscape and architecture, deserve.”

As part of the commemoration of Bakewell’s birth, 300 years ago, members of the New Dishley Society have written and released a new book, Robert Bakewell Britain’s Foremost Livestock Breeder which will be available from mid-May 2025, for £25, plus £4 post & packing inland UK. The book contains, inter alia, much newly researched material on the Bakewell family, their farming provenance, the distribution of his famous animals and his bankruptcy. It is an illustrated, hardback book running to 341 pages. To obtain a copy of the book please apply to ndssecretaryatgmaildotcom (making the usual substitutions) and include your name, address with postcode, and email address.

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Notes

[1] Ingram, J. H. (1947). North Midland Country: a survey of Cheshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire. Series: The Face of Britain. London: Batsford, pgs. 13, 15, 26, 29, 93 & 94

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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So who was … Robert Bakewell?

The Dishley Millennium mosaic.

In short, a pioneering, 18^th century Leicestershire gentleman farmer! Interested to know more? Read on!

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a walk, led by a friend of mine, around the farm where Robert Bakewell did much of his pioneering farming. The estate is privately owned, and arrangements had been made with the tenant farmers to allow a group of interested folk to come and visit the estate that had been so important in the early days of the agricultural revolution. The weather started off looking promising, but much of the walk took place in heavy rain, although this in no way dampened the spirits of the enthusiasts who had turned out for this exciting walk! 

So, Robert Bakewell (1725-1795) was the son of Robert Bakewell, the grandson of Robert Bakewell, and, if the sources I have consulted are correct, the great-grandson and great-great-grandson of Robert Bakewell!

As Wikipedia might put it, here's some disambiguation:

• Robert Bakewell (agriculturalist - pioneering English farmer) 1725-1795 *

• Robert Bakewell (ironsmith – English wrought ironsmith) 1682–1752 **

• Robert Bakewell (geologist - English) 1768–1843

Sign at the entrance to Dishley Grange

Our Robert Bakewell inherited Dishley Grange (formerly the Grange to Garendon Abbey), a farm of about 440 acres, a quarter of which was arable land, from his father when the latter died in 1760. The farm was owned by Sir Ambrose Phillips, and the Bakewells were tenant farmers, being granted a 3-generation lease, as was common practice at the time. Before taking over the running of the farm from his father, Bakewell had been travelling around England, Europe and the Low Countries learning about farming methods, and absorbing everything he saw, before serving an apprenticeship with his father from about 1855, and finally taking over the running of the farm when his father died.

At the time when Bakewell inherited the farm, things were changing in Britain. Until the time of the Enclosures Act (around 1750) people were able to graze their own animals and grow their own crops on land where they lived, but this was not an efficient way of providing for what was a growing population. More food was needed, so farming methods began to change in order for the farmers to farm more efficiently. Also, animals had previously been an integral part of the family, and people worked and slept with their animals.  

There seem to have been several aspects of farming that Robert was interested in, and developed:

• Animal breeding: Cows, sheep and horses

• Crop management techniques: Land irrigation and crop rotation

• Manuring techniques: Double floors for manure collection

Animal breeding

Prior to Bakewell’s time, male and female animals were kept in the same fields and allowed to breed naturally. On his travels, Bakewell had observed that it was possible to change inherited characteristics of animals, if their breeding was controlled. So, he began by separating out his males from his females, keeping them in different fields and allowing the male to breed with specific females only, so as to accentuate certain characteristics.

To help feed a growing population, Bakewell was interested in producing animals with more meat. Up until this time, sheep, for example, had been reared predominantly for their wool, but Bakewell used his breeding “in and in” techniques to produce the New Leicester (or Dishley) sheep, that, although delicately boned, were big, with fatty forequarters, and good quality, long, coarse wool. From accounts I’ve read, it appears that Bakewell crossed Old Lincolnshire sheep (possibly the Lincoln Longwool) with the best Leicester or Ryland sheep. Apparently, the New Leicesters produced 2lbs of meat where there had previously only been 1lb and the average dead weight of sheep increased from 12.7kg in 1710 to 36kg in 1795.

Bakewell also applied his breeding principles to cattle, and managed to produce a much larger cow, although its meat was somewhat fattier, and its milk was poorer. He apparently used Longhorns (possibly from Warwickshire) to breed with Lancashire (possibly Westmoreland) bulls.

As if this were not enough, Bakewell also improved the draught horse, the Black Carthorse, or Leicestershire Black, which was the forerunner of the Shire horse. These horses were bred for their strength, and it is widely reported that where other farmers needed between for and seven horses to pull their ploughs, Bakewell only needed to use two. 

Some of the sources I read also made mention of pig rearing, but I have not found any evidence of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was also something Bakewell was involved in.

Some of Bakewell’s famous animals are Twopenny the Bull, Twopounder the Ram, and the Black Horse called “K”, and the horse called “G”, which was a favourite of George III. 

In 1783 Bakewell formed the Dishley Society to protect the purity of his stock, and to help other farmers improve their livestock.

Bakewell was also one of the first farmers to hire out his male animals – stallions, bulls and rams - for mating. Often, rams were hired out for a whole season, and while in 1760 the cost was simply a few shillings per season, by 1770 this had been raised to 25 Guineas, and Twopounder for £1200.   

In the early days of his work, Bakewell would preserve skeletons and pickle carcasses of various specimens of his animals in order to better study them and assess their characteristics. He was initially also quite secretive about his work, presumably because in-breeding was frowned upon by the church. 

Crop management techniques

The land that Bakewell inherited was very wet, and sloped down towards the river. He took advantage of this, diverting the brook and creating canals, which meant that he could improve the quality of his grasslands by allowing them to be slightly flooded, which in turn meant that he was able to cut his grass four times a year – the extra one being in the Spring, which meant that his cattle could be grazed, and therefore fattened earlier in the year - rather than the three cuts which was more usual. He also set up different parcels of land to experiment with different manuring techniques and with different levels of flooding.

The canals also served a mill, and were also used to transport livestock feed, in the form of turnips, which were thrown into the canal at the high end and they floated down to the end of the route, where they were stopped by a grating, being collected clean and ready to be stored and used later to feed the animals.

Bakewell also sowed his seeds using the seed drill system (as pioneered by Jethro Tull) rather than the dispersal system which was the most common, but most unreliable way, and used a horse hoe to keep the ground clean. Taking advantage of the wet ground, Bakewell planted many willow trees, which were trimmed about every seven years, and were used to make things like rake handles, and sack bottoms were made from the willow tree trimmings. Bakewell also had a pond which he kept filled with fish, and water that drained from the yard of the house were channelled into the brook to help with the irrigation.

Manuring techniques

In his efforts to improve the efficiency of his farm through his land, his animals and his techniques, Bakewell created animal stalls with double stalls, which meant that he was able to collect manure from his animals, and watered it down to make a liquid manure to improve the quality of his land.

Bakewell and religion

Bakewell was a Unitarian, and a trustee of the Unitarian Church in Loughborough (which was somewhere along Warner’s Lane) and in Mountsorrel. Unitarians were a non-conformist group and, as such, were not widely accepted until after the Act of Toleration in 1689. This meant that although they became recognised and allowed to build their own chapels, there were many restrictions on them. So, for example, Unitarians were not allowed to go to university, nor to be JPs or hold any state or civic office.

The effect of this was that Unitarians often worked and socialised with other Unitarians and often a Unitarian married another Unitarian. At one time (and I’m not sure if this is still the case) Unitarians could only be buried in Church of England burial grounds. In the grounds of Dishley Grange is the remains of Dishley Church, which fell out of use in about 1854 when the Thorp Acre Church was built. In about 1882 the church was mostly dismantled, but some restoration work appears to have been undertaken in about 1919.   

Unfortunately, despite his success with animal breeding and new farming techniques, Bakewell was not particularly wealthy, and was indeed at one time bankrupt. There may perhaps be a number of reasons for this: He entertained lavishly, and probably beyond his means; his experimentation was expensive; there were often times when others did not pay the amount due for the lease of his rams; wool was at one point selling for a fraction of its highest costs, and war with America had reduced the value of some produce.

Bakewell today

In 1974, the Robert Bakewell School was built in Loughborough, and was extended in 1980. This is a popular primary school situated in Barsby Drive, an area which was once part of the parish of Thorpe Acre, of which I believe Dishley was a chapelry.

I don’t know when the original Dishley Society was disbanded, but the New Dishley Society was formed in 1994, to ensure that the bicentenary in 1995 was recognised. The New Dishley Society aims:

The blue plaque on Warner’s Lane

“to promote the memory of Robert Bakewell of Dishley Grange (1725-1795), and of his contemporaries and students of his methods. It aims to disseminate knowledge of his work and appreciation of his pioneering legacy in the breeding of improved farm livestock and better crop management. It supports research into the revolutionary agricultural techniques of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and into the men who developed these techniques.”

On Wednesday 29th October, 2008, a blue plaque, commemorating “Robert Bakewell, Livestock Breeder”, was placed, by the borough council, on a building in Warner’s Lane, Loughborough, that building being closest to the site of the Unitarian Chapel of which Bakewell (and his father before him) was a trustee.

2009 saw the completion of the Robert Bakewell halls of residence at Loughborough University, and in 2012, Brooksby Melton College honoured the memory of Robert Bakewell, after whom one of their halls was already named, by unveiling a plaque and storyboard outside the aforementioned hall.

In Loughborough itself, the Belton Road industrial estate is notable for naming its roads after local firms (for example, Cotton Way and Messenger Close) but there is indeed also a Bakewell Road. 

Mother and calves at Oakley Grange March 2014.

Up at Oakley Grange, between Hathern and Shepshed, the traditional of Longhorn breeding is carrying on as descendants of Bakewell’s Longhorn cattle are still being bred, and Leicester Longwool sheep are still bred in Yorkshire, as well as other parts of the UK, there also being an association specifically focussed on them.     

That’s all for now, but do call back to lynneaboutloughborough next week for a photographic walk through Dishely Grange Farm.

* Over in Norfolk, Robert Bakewell’s work was known to one Thomas William Coke (1754-1842, first Earl of Leicester, seventh creation) who had a large estate. He is remembered mostly as an agricultural reformer, who was influenced by Bakewell’s work, rather than for his work as an MP.

 

** Coincidentally, Robert Bakewell, ironsmith, also had connections with one Thomas Coke (1674-1727), this particular Thomas Coke being the owner of Melbourne Hall, in south Derbyshire, an architect and an MP for Derbyshire. The “birdcage” in the gardens of Melbourne Hall were created by this Robert Bakewell.