Thomas Bates - Northumbrian Farming Innovator and Shorthorn Breeding Pioneer

By Dr Malcolm Tait, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

How on earth could there be connections between the village of Chudleigh in Tasmania; Vancouver, Canada; Halton Castle, Northumberland; Thomas Bates and Shorthorn cattle?

This story began while my wife and I were visiting Tasmania in 2005. We stumbled across a local agricultural show at Chudleigh where, just by chance we met Warwick Holmes, a retired dairy farmer. His small herd of dairy Shorthorns is his hobby and pride and joy.

Warwick knew only a little about the history of the breed so, with my wife being from Durham, and me from Northumberland, we told him what we knew. I then promised to do some research and provide more detail.

On our return to Vancouver I discovered a book in the library of the University of British Columbia, entitled "The History of Improved Short-Horn or Durham Cattle: from notes of the late Thomas Bates".

Thomas Bell
The author of the book was a Thomas Bell, born at Halton Castle, Northumberland in 1805, where his father Robert Bell was farm steward for Thomas Bates for many years. Robert Redpath, "North of England Farmer Office", Clayton Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, published the book in 1871, and this particular copy is signed by a "John Swinburne, 16 Aug. 1871".

Who was John Swinburne (a good Northumbrian name), and how did the book end up in Canada?

From the book I discovered that Thomas Bates was a Northumbrian, one of the leading agriculturalists of his day, and a famous breeder of Shorthorn cattle. His contribution to agriculture in the county, and the Shorthorn breed around the world was massive, and that he probably never got full credit for this.

Memories of Cockle Park
Reading this material brought back memories; generations of us past students who studied at King's College (then a college of the University of Durham) and Cockle Park (the University's experimental farm) were told all this by our revered Professor H. Cecil Pawson, but not much went in at the time as history was not our favorite subject.

Shorthorns were called "Durham cattle" and the Colling brothers who farmed near Darlington get most of the credit for their development. But Thomas Bates made a much greater contribution to improving the breed, and to many other aspects of agriculture.

A man of foresight
Bates was a man of great foresight; many of his ideas were conceived at Halton Castle, which became the test bed for much of his work. Later in life he moved to Kirklevington in North Yorkshire, and his involvement with Shorthorns is often linked to his Kirklevington herd with little mention of his Northumbrian roots.

Bates concentrated on the breed's milk production and milk quality, he was largely responsible for developing the dairy strain of Shorthorn, and apparently large quantities of superior quality butter and cheese were made at Halton. A footnote in Bell's book states; "I believe that no cheese is now (1871) made in Northumberland. The ordinary cheese used by the labouring classes is nearly all American".

Shorthorns were classed as a "dual purpose" breed and produced both meat and milk. Robert Booth of Killerby, Durham concentrated on the beef characteristics and there was a famous saying "Booth for the butcher, Bates for the pail".

Thomas Bates
Thomas Bates was born in 1776 and attended school at Haydon Bridge and Witton-le-Wear. His farming career began at Aydon Castle and by the age of 20 he was managing one of his father's estates, Park End, Wark. Within a very short time he made significant improvements to that property, primarily by draining and liming.

He was 25 in 1800 when he took the 21-year lease on 800 acres at Halton Castle, a short distance north of Corbridge. He immediately began draining large areas of that estate applying what was known as the Elkington principle. This involved close study of the nature of the soils, the strata and the water flow. Drains were up to 10 feet deep and draining was followed by extensive use of lime.

While he was at Halton he spent the winters of 1809-11 at Edinburgh University studying chemistry and mineralogy. He then promoted the application of these and other sciences to the study and improvement of agriculture.

Many friends
Many eminent agriculturalists were his friends, mentors, and sources of inspiration and several were frequent visitors to Halton Castle. One of the most notable was George Culley of Fenton who married Elizabeth Bates, a cousin of Thomas' father. The Culley brothers were noted breeders of livestock especially the creation of Border Leicester sheep. Many of the principles of animal breeding that Thomas Bates applied to the improvement of Shorthorns were learned from George Culley.

George Culley was also the primary author of the "Survey of Northumberland" 1797. In that report he proposed the establishment of experimental farms to bring about improvements in farming. Thomas Bates picked up this idea, developed it further and presented a lengthy address on the subject of the need for "publicly funded experimental farms" to the Board of Agriculture. It's dated Halton Castle, Dec. 19th 1807.

No farming academics
In that address, he expressed concern that Britain was not self-sufficient in food and was becoming increasingly dependent on imports. In relation to this he also debated the pros and cons of free trade. Furthermore, Bates lamented that there was not a professor of agriculture at either Cambridge or Oxford University. He was clearly a man ahead of his time, as it was 40 years after his death that the Northumberland County Experimental Station was established at Cockle Park (1896), as well as a Chair of Agriculture at the University of Durham, College of Science, Newcastle.

Bates was also interested in forestry; he started plantations on the higher land at Park End, primarily to provide shelter for livestock. While at Halton, he wrote articles for agricultural publications urging other landowners to do the same, drawing attention to the importance and benefits of shelter for stock.

As a result 1000 acres of Corbridge commons was planted. Swedish visitors to Halton Castle gave his efforts in afforestation greater impetus when they observed that, "Britain imports large quantities of timber yet the hills of Northumberland are naked." Did Thomas Bates foresee Kielder Forest?

Moving to Ridley Hall
In 1818, before the lease on Halton Castle expired, Bates bought Ridley Hall and moved there. He subsequently moved to Kirklevington in 1830. On one occasion he attended a meeting at Alnwick and in response to a toast he said; "Although I now reside in Yorkshire my heart is still in Northumberland".

Several of his ideas have borne fruit and many of the issues he addressed nearly 200 years ago are highly relevant today. He never married and the herd was dispersed after he died at Kirklevington in 1849. There is a memorial beside his grave in the Kirklevington churchyard that was raised by his friends who recognized him as "one of the most distinguished breeders of Shorthorn cattle".

Within Kirklevingon church there is a memorial window depicting Shorthorn cattle which his nephew arranged to be installed in 1883.

Shorthorn Cattle - A History of the Breed

By Dr Clive Dalton

The Shorthorn was a mainstay of British farming for hundreds of years and far outnumbered all other types. Its origins are obscure, although there were large red and white cattle with short horns (as opposed to Longhorn cattle) called Teeswaters in England in the early 18th Century near Darlington in county Durham. They probably had a lot of Dutch blood in them.

Charles Colling (1750-1836) and his brother Robert (1749-1820) of Barmpton Hall (see photo at right) used the principles of “in-and-in breeding”, and “breeding the best to the best” developed by the famous breeding pioneer of the time - Thomas Bakewell of Dishley. Bakewell was the noted “improver” of Longhorn cattle and Leicester sheep and his breeding principles were taken up, and in time were applied to all farm stock.

Thomas Bates (1776-1849) continued the work along with the Booth family (father, sons and grandsons) working from 1790-1878). The degree to which inbreeding was used can be seen from the pedigree of the famous bull “Belvedere, bred by Bates whose son (Favourite 252) had 53/64th of Belvedere’s blood, with one more 64th from Favourite’s mother.

Picture: Killerby Grange, Yorkshire. Home of the Booth Brothers

In the mid 1800s, breeders responded to a demand for beef from abroad which started to threaten emphasis on milk. But pioneering work was done in Scotland by Amos Cruikshank of Sittydon (1808-1895) who selected for milk production in his cattle and also bred them for the butcher. Later George Taylor of Cranford and Lord Rothschild of Tring built up Shorthorn dairy herds where carcass value was also improved. So these breeders were valiantly trying to select for both meat and milk traits in the same animals.

This made sense - to breed fast growing males and good milking females, and when the females had finished milking, they fattened quickly for beef. Unfortunately the result was the wrong combination – i.e. steers that wouldn’t fatten and heifers that wouldn’t milk, hence the criticism that “dual-purpose” was really “no-purpose”!

What really killed the Shorthorn in UK was the clear drive for more milk after the war and was the trigger for specialist dairy breeds like the Dutch Friesian (which became the British Friesian) to take over.

The Shorthorn survived, but only after being split into two separate breeds – the Beef Shorthorn and the Dairy Shorthorn, although they were still both registered in the same (Coates’s) herd book. Then a very productive dairy strain of Shorthorn developed in the Yorkshire and Durham Dales and in Cumberland where it was referred to and registered as the Northern Dairy Shorthorn (NDS). It was very popular and the Cumberland Farm Institute at Newton Rigg had a top herd.

The Lincoln Red Shorthorn evolved in East Anglia where a dual-purpose cow was ideal to turn arable farming byproducts into beef and milk. Up to 1935 they were recorded in their own herd book. They are a rich red colour (referred to as Lincoln Reds ) and today are classed as a "Rare Bred".

The Beef Shorthorn was always popular in Scotland and you would hear farmers refer to their “Scotch Shorthorn” and their noted “Scotch beef”. These cattle were regular prizewinners at the annual Smithfield Show in London.

But the most amazing thing about the Beef Shorthorn is the way it spread around the world and made massive contributions to beef production in North and South America, Africa and Australia where extremes from shimmering heat to below-zero cold were so very different from it’s native heath. The breed can still be found in these areas, and it may yet make a comeback with renewed interest in cattle that can perform on pasture, as world grain prices rise.

Beef Shorthorn genes have made a major contribution to other breeds such as the Luing in Scotland, Santa Gertrudis in the USA and the Queensland Red in Australia. In North America, Bates’s Shorthorns were probably some of the first to be imported, and in his book he refers to cattle being sold to the Ohio Agricultural Society about 1830. He even contemplated moving to America, and the book refers to “repeated statements of Bates that the Americans know the properties and value of improved Shorthorns better than in his own country”.

Bates observed that “in the United States and Canada short-horn cattle are not the fancy and hobby of a few gentlemen or noblemen of large fortune. They are the investments of highly educated and experienced and sensible men of business and commerce. He also found Americans free of the narrow prejudices and interested motives he encountered at home”. It seemed that he really liked the place, the people and the cattle!

In Canada the Beef Shorthorn (probably of Cruickshank origin) replaced the Texas Longhorn at the end of the 19th Century and the larger ranches used Shorthorns extensively right up to the 1930s when the Hereford took over.

In Australia, breeders in the Illiwarra area south of Sydney in New South Wales produced a smooth coated Dairy Shorthorn, mainly dark red in colour (like the Lincoln Red) with impressive performance in warm coastal conditions.

White Beef Shorthorn bulls were used widely in Britain to cross on to Galloway cows to produce what many considered the “Rolls Royce” of commercial beef cows – the “Blue-Grey”. We certainly make this claim in Northumberland where so many of them were bred and bought by beef farmers all over England for breeding cows. The Blue-Grey colour comes from their combined black and white hairs giving the impression of blue from a distance. They were mated to Aberdeen Angus bulls and all the offspring went for prime beef.

Breeders in Cumberland and the Hexham area of Northumberland were noted for producing these white Shorthorn bulls, and they were sometimes referred to as the “Cumberland” or “Hexham White Shorthorn”. Hexham was certainly an important market where they were sold.

Generations of us agricultural students had to suffer memorising Mendel’s coloured peas in basic genetics, and peas were definitely not our thing. But the inheritance of Shorthorn coat colour was more in our line of business, as in the 1950s the breed was still very popular. Here’s the outcome of crossing the different colours. The capital letter is used for the dominant allele and the small case letter for the recessive allele. The two alleles make up the “gene” for colour.

• Red bull (RR) x Red cow (RR) = all homozygous red offspring (RR) -(red allele is dominant)
• White bull (rr) x White cow (rr) = all homozygous white offspring (rr) -(white allele is recessive)
• Red bull (RR) x White cow (rr) = all heterozygous roan (Rr)
• White bull (rr) x Red cow (RR) – all heterozygous roan (Rr)
• Roan bull (Rr) x Roan cow (Rr) = 1 homozygous red (RR): 2 heterozygous roan (Rr): 1 homozygous white (rr). The phenotypic ratio (1:2:1) or what they look like is the same as the genetic ratio (what their genetic makeup is).

Further reading:
Sanders, E. (1951). A Beast Book for the pocket. The Vertebrates of Britain Wild and Domestic other than Birds and Fishes. (See chapter on cattle), Oxford University Press.

Dalton, D.C. (1980). An introduction to practical animal breeding.
Granada. ISBN 0-246-11194-1

Dr Malcolm Tait - Profile

by Clive Dalton

Malcolm Tait was born a “Geordie” on the outskirts of Newcastle upon Tyne, and after leaving school was able to claim “Northumbrian” status through his early work experience on farms at Rothbury and Stocksfield.

He graduated in agriculture from Kings College, Newcastle, (then the University of Durham), followed by a PhD on sheep nutrition under the supervision of Prof. Mac Cooper. The field work for his Ph.D was conducted at Cockle Park, and living in the ancient tower made him very aware of the significance of that rugged edifice in the defence of Northumberland and the sovereignty of England. He reckons that he served a three-year sentence in the “Tower”, followed by being sentenced to transportation to the 'colonies'!

His colonial sentence was to British Columbia, Canada, where he emigrated as a result of Mac Cooper’s worldwide communication network with Blythe Eagles, Dean of Agriculture at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Malcolm’s initial two-year contract became a very fulfilling and lifelong career in teaching and research in Agriculture at UBC.

His main research interests were the effects of processing grain supplements on the nutrition of ewes and lambs, and copper deficiency and toxicity in beef cattle and sheep. He is now in busy retirement where his special interests continue to be all things agricultural, Rover cars, and tracing his ancestors throughout the Scottish borders.

Malcolm has contributed a magnificent post to Woolshed 1 on the history of the Shorthorn Cattle breed and one of the pioneers of Northumbrian agricultural innovation Thomas Bates.