A meeting recorded in the Wakefield Star newspaper of 1 May 1807 is believed to be the first meeting of the Wakefield Florists Society held at the Grand Stand, Outwood, Wakefield on the previous Monday.
The show was for Auriculas and Polyanthus and familiar names among the exhibitors are Mr Ely, (probably Benjamin Ely who often judged the Society’s tulip shows) and Mr Marshall (who may have been Richard Marshall, an exhibitor at the auricula show in 1827).
To put this in the context of what was going on in England at the time, just four weeks previously the Slave Trade Act 1807 had been passed in Parliament which banned the slave trade, though not slavery which continued for another 26 years. George lll was the King of Great Britain and two further kings would reign before Victoria came to the throne.