We hope you enjoy another in our series of posts from Council Archivist Craig Geddes. This time he looks at the records of Mearns Agricultural Society. The Mearns entry in the New Statistical Account of 1842 states that the parish was ‘distinguished as a district for pasturage; and at the present day the produce of the dairy, including chiefly butter and butter-milk, obtains a ready and favourable market in the neighbouring city of Glasgow’.
“A small but nonetheless interesting archive in the Council’s care is that of the Mearns Agricultural Society.
These records date from the end of the nineteenth century to the time of the Second World
Mearns Agricultural Society news clipping
War and detail the activities of the Society, from holding agricultural shows to hosting social events.
One later item notes how the area is “gradually but inevitably being given over to housing”, but the archive paints a picture of the Mearns in the time before fields and farms were taken over by houses and roads.
The image shown here is from 1939, and shows the champion horse of Mr. White of Ryat farm.”
The list of this archive is available on the Council’s website – see www.eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk/archives, or for more information or to arrange to view the archive please contact Craig Geddes, Council Records Manager, on craig.geddes@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk.
For more on the farming history of Mearns, a tremendous amount of information is available on the Mearns History Group website pages at:
