The History Of The Hereford Breed

The Hereford as it's name suggests has evolved from the indigenous Red Cattle which roamed the Welsh Border Counties and the Western extremities of England. The origins of a special breed of cattle in the County of Herefordshire have been mentioned by various agricultural authors as long ago as the early 1600's.During the 1700's and early 1800's documented records of the breed were maintained by various individuals in and around the Herefordshire area, leading to the publication of the First Herd Book of Hereford Cattle in 1846 by Thomas Eyton of Wellington, Shropshire. This First Herd Book contained the records of 551 Bulls entered by 75 Breeders.

The publication of subsequent Herd Books passed through a number of hands until the formation of The Hereford Herd Book Society on the 5th March 1878. In 1996, the 150th Anniversary of the Publication of the First Herd Book, the Society changed it's name to The Hereford Cattle Society.
The Society, in those early days serviced by retired breeder Samuel Urwick, took on the role of publishing the Hereford Herd Book since when only the First World War interrupted it's appearance and then for only one Volume.

In 1886, eight years after the Society's inauguration, entries of cattle into the Herd Book were confined to those whose Sire and Dam had been recorded in previous volumes .There is no doubt that a great debt of gratitude is owed to those early pioneers of this famous breed of cattle who could surely never have envisaged the position of the breed today.