COTSWOLD SHEEP SOCIETY 

HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY 

The first Cotswold Sheep Society was formed in 1892.  Their first flock book contained the histories of 22 flocks, which had owned 12,639 ewes between them.  The oldest of these flocks had been established prior to 1790, several dated back to the late 1790,s and most had been established by the mid 1800’s.  The Society was active for many years but as the numbers of Cotswold sheep slowly declined, the Society became less active and finally lapsed in the mid 1920’s. 

In 1966 a small group of breeders gathered at the home of Mr William Garne, in Aldsworth, Gloucestershire, to discuss the reformation of the Society.  Mr Garne, who was 85 years old at this meeting, was a living link to the original Society, whose formation he remembered.  His family had bred Cotswold sheep at Aldsworth in Gloucestershire for at least 200 years.  Mrs O.H. Colburn was also a member of the Garne family and had a small flock at Crickley Barrow near Northleach.  The other large flock still in existence at this time, belonged to the Dowager Lady Vesty, widow to the Second Baron Vesty whom she married in 1908.  She was a woman ahead of her time, had a Master of Arts degree and was a Magistrate.  When she lost her son and then her husband she became involved in managing the Vesty estates, and took an active interest in the flock of Cotswold sheep which she was very careful to ensure remained pure. 

A new Society was formed at the Aldsworth meeting, with Col. E.G.D. Kennedy as chairman.  Col. Kennedy had been a co-director of ‘British Livestock Exports’ with Mr W. Garne since before 1939-45 war, and was interested in Cotswolds in Canada, Australia and Germany.  He was also involved in exporting Cotswold rams to Iran.  Rodney Stanford agreed to be the first secretary of the new Society.  He was an old friend of Col. Kennedy and was related to John Tredwell, one of the first people involved on producing the Cotswold Hampshire crosses that became the Oxford Down breed.  He was greatly assisted in the legal formation of the Society, by Mrs R.M. Fisher, secretary to Mr Oscar Colburn. 

Other founders included Messrs Railston-Brown and Jones representing the Vesty Estate, and Mr E.H. Tong from the “gene bank” of old breeds at Whipsnade Zoo.  They were soon followed by new breeders of Cotswold sheep who joined and worked enthusiastically towards the survival and improvement of the breed. 

At first breeders and their flocks were registered.  Individual sheep records were kept on the owners farms and were available for inspection by other members, but the introduction of sheep certification and the production of the flock book information was not introduced until 1974, when the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (R.B.S.T.) published its first Combined Flock Book, which included Cotswold Sheep. 

The R.B.S.T. continued to maintain the registry on behalf of the Society until 1987.  During this period the Society concentrated its efforts on breed promotion and membership activity.  In 1986 it was decided, by the members of the Society, that they now wished the Society to run its own registry along the lines developed by the R.B.S.T.  Therefore “Flock Book 1” was the first to be produced by the Cotswold Sheep Society since its reformation in 1966.