Shropshire Sheep Breeders’ Association remembers former president John Bowles
1st December 2015
John Bowles: 22nd May 1934 – 23rd November 2015
It is with great sadness that the Shropshire Sheep Breeders’ Association reports the death of John Bowles, a former president of the association and one of the most influential breeders in the recent history of Shropshire sheep.
It will be both as a stockman and a judge of livestock that he will be best remembered. These skills led him to being instrumental in saving Shropshires from the brink of extinction in the 1970s.
John was born and lived the majority of his life at Frogmore Farm, Broadclyst, Devon. As a young man, he is well remembered by his fellow Young Farmers for his stockjudging skills. He represented England on many occasions and travelled to competitions across the UK in the 1950s, often bringing success to the team. He learnt the science of stockjudging in the YFC movement, but the art of judging animals was an innate skill he was born with, which is difficult to explain to people who are not lucky enough to possess it. Now we have computers to keep track of animals’ pedigrees, but John’s amazing memory meant he could recall livestock family lines going back over many generations, sometimes with more accuracy than electronic means.
When John married Pauline Edwards in 1958 he had found his soulmate and someone who shared his passion for livestock breeding. Throughout their farming career they were often pioneers in adopting new innovations. In the early 1970s, Frogmore Farm became the first dairy farm in the county to install a rotary milking parlour, moving to the cutting edge of dairy technology from the previous abreast parlour. Through the 1960s and 70s showing dairy cows and sheep at all the Devon shows was a part of the yearly calendar, as well as judging assignments across the country.
In 1976 John discovered Shropshire sheep when looking for a new breed to replace the flock he had inherited from his father. He was looking through a book of sheep breeds when the Shropshire caught his eye. John and Pauline then set out on a mission to find Shropshire sheep in their homeland of West Midlands, as well as Herefordshire. This was difficult as the breed was in great decline with less than 250 registered females in the UK flock book at this time.
Foundation flock
A total of 26 ewes were purchased from three flocks – Grangewood (Messrs Wood), Stretton Court (T.B. Dew) and Lea (S.B. Whittles), with a ram bred by Messrs Wood that was loaned from M. Rosenburg. From this foundation, John went on to develop one of the largest and most successful flocks of Shropshire sheep in the world – the Sidedowns Flock.
Early stock rams used in the breeding programme included Grangewood Senator, Spice Kojak, Stretton Court Gordon, Stretton Court Archie and Stackhouse Scott. Later many homebred rams were used. Flock returns between 1987 and 1993 confirm that John and Pauline’s flock numbered around 300 registered ewes. Breeding animals with the Sidedowns lineage are now found in Shropshire flocks around the globe.
Show Successes
Throughout the 1980s and 90s, the Sidedowns flock was supreme at all the major livestock shows in England and Wales, in no small part due to John’s eye for livestock and Pauline’s attention to show preparation. Their successes in the showring are really too numerous to mention, but there can be few Shropshire sheep trophies that do not have ‘J.H. and P.A. Bowles’ engraved upon them.
As well as a great many breed championships in Shropshire classes, John achieved many notable successes in butchers’ lambs and carcase competitions. These include a win at the Royal Show in 1982 with a crossbred lamb by a Shropshire ram out of a Mule ewe. He also competed successfully at the Welsh Winter Fair and the Smithfield with purebred Shropshires.
Alongside show success John and Pauline were trailblazers in the 1970s, adopting performance testing for their Shropshire flock when this kind of scientific assessment was in its infancy. Working with the Meat and Livestock Commission, they were able to identify and breed from the best in their flock and accelerate the breed progress.
In the 1990s Sidedowns Hallmark went into a breed testing programme at Adas Liscombe and outperformed all other breeds for weight gain and eye muscle, with a 21-week eye muscle reading of 39mm. The Sidedowns flock joined the current Shropshire Breed Improvement Scheme in 2006.
John was President of our breed society on two occasions – 1983-86 and 1998-99. He was a Council Member for a total of 22 years. The SSBA recognised the outstanding contribution John and Pauline have made to Shropshire sheep by presenting them with a long service award in 2005 – a specially commissioned painting based on the photograph of them shown here.
Legacy
John is survived by Pauline and a growing family of children and grandchildren, all successful in a range of fields and many still associated with agriculture in its broadest sense. His legacy within the Shropshire society is unlikely to ever be forgotten and he must have taken great pleasure when the Shropshire breed was formally removed from the Rare Breed Survival Trust’s Watchlist for rare breeds in 2013. There can be no doubt that he played a major role in the survival of Shropshire sheep, which once more flourish in the UK and in many countries around the world.
