RSPCA Horse Brass 1928

This listing is for a Genuine ANTIQUE R.S.P.C.A. Horse Brass MERIT BADGE

Issued for the London Van Horse Parade 1928 by the RSPCA

<snip> During the past week, pollution levels in London have been very high. The thousands of cars, taxis, buses, lorries etc. that keep the city supplied and moving but congest the city’s streets, contributing to the smog that hangs across the city when there is no wind to blow it to the east. In previous centuries, it was the horse that was essential to the functioning of the city. Transporting goods and people from one end of the city to the other.

I have seen a range of different figures for how many horses were on the streets of the London, with numbers of around 300,000 in the year 1900.

Treatment of horses was very variable and dependent on the owner. Horses needed to earn their keep and when they could not, through age or illness they were of little use to their owner.

There were a number of initiatives in the 19th Century to try to improve the conditions of the city’s horses, one of which was the Cart Horse Parade, established in 1885 with the aim of encouraging the owners of horses to take pride in their animals and to show to their peers and the public in a formal annual parade.

The first Cart Horse Parades took place on Whit Monday in Battersea Park. A second annual parade, the Van Horse Parade started in 1904 and took place on Easter Monday.

The Cart Horse Parade moved to Regent’s Park in 1888.

The two parades continued to run as separate parades, however with the declining numbers of working horses across the city, the two parades merged into a single Easter Monday parade in 1966. <snip>

PLEASE NOTE

As I am presently ON VACATION & will BE AWAY when this auction ends

The winning bidder will very likely have to AWAIT 1-2 Weeks AFTER Payment, before receiving this item

If this will be any kind of issue for you?

Then PLEASE DO NOT BID on my listing