And so it was that early in 1909 we moved to Nogent-le-Retrou in the Perche district. The years between 1909 and the outbreak of the Second World War were, for Father, the golden years of the Percheron horse trade. In 1912, more than 300 horses passed through his hands for export to the USA and Canada. Father, of course, was only one of several others involved in the same business. In fact 3,227 stallions and mares were exported to the USA and Canada in 1909.

I have always been told that Father was an extremely good judge of horses, rarely making a mistake in his assessment, and it seems that because of this his customers grew to trust him.

With the First World War came the end of the great Percheron export trade to the USA because of rapidly developing mechanisation. By the time the war was over, there was little trade with either the USA or Canada and by then there were almost enough home bred Percherons to meet the limited home demand.

A Percheron Mare & Foal

It was due to the need in France for draft horses for hauling during the First World War that the Director of British Remount became interested in the Percheron horses and this lead to interest in England in this horse and to a flourishing trade with the British Isles after the war. Needless to say, this trade was on a much smaller scale than the North American trade had been, but a number of well-known companies and farms over here started using Percherons instead of British breeds. Amongst Father's customers at this time were Chivers and Ovaltine. When the British Percheron Horse Society was established in 1919 more people became interested in the breed for showing purposes. One of Father's main customers was a Mrs Emmett. Mr Truman was still buying, this time for his own farming establishment outside March: he had several stallions servicing mares in his area. There are still Percherons in the Fenlands, here and there.

The 1920-30 decade was a good one for the Percheron horse export trade to England. A small demand for stallions in South America and South Africa also developed and one Canadian customer continued to buy well into the thirties. Also in that period, Father had a South American customer for Catalonian Jackasses from Spain. These were used for Remount purposes. In Catalonia he travelled with a farmer doing similar business to his own. We heard later that this farmer and his two sons had been murdered during the Spanish Civil War, which conflict put paid to the export of Jackasses from Spain.

Father also had a very good customer from Brazil for the Brittany Post Horse. Here again he travelled around to the farms with someone who lived locally. The shipments were generally of between ten and fifteen horses, the last one being made not long before the Second World War.

By then very few horses were leaving the Perche district. The larger breeders, who still owned a few stallions, went over to cattle rearing on their extensive meadows and the smaller farms, which owned mares for working as well as breeding, were gradually going over to mechanisation. More land was being tilled, cattle rearing was on the increase, and maize, which had never been grown so far north before, was taking over large acreages.

A Photo from one of the studs with which Gerald Powell did business. The horses appear to be Belgian Draft

The actual shipping of the horses was quite an important event, which Father always supervised himself. In the days of the American exports, the horses were mostly shipped from Le Havre but some also went from Antwerp.

The Brittany Post Horses, curious as it may seem, were also shipped from these ports on cargo boats, which also took passengers - mostly immigrants. A little of my own life comes into these shipments. Apart from doing the paper work, I also went with Father to Antwerp and Le Havre. Before any horse could be sent to Brazil, apart from a veterinary test (the Mallein test) the pedigree of each horse had to be validated by the Préfecture of the Department in which the Stud Book was situated. The documentation was then countersigned by the appropriate section of the Ministère de l'Interieur (the Home Office), the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (Foreign Office) and finally by the Brazilian Embassy.

Father was made a Chevalier du Mérite Agricole in the late 1920s (or early 30s) for services benefiting French agriculture and for the export of Percheron horses to the USA, Canada and Great Britain.

One of the many postcards with which Gerald Powell conducted his business - a century before email!

Since writing the above, I have been through my collection of postcards written by Father to my stepsister, Denise. These cover the first decade of the 20th century. From them it appears that during that time Father was mostly with customers in Belgium, occasionally going down to Nogent from about 1906. Shipping from Antwerp, Tilbury and Liverpool is mentioned: presumably the Percherons went from Le Havre, unless it was a mixed shipment. The postcards indicate how much Father travelled. I see that he was in Belgium less than a week after my birth. The postcards also prove what a hectic life it must have been - in Antwerp one day, Le Havre the next, and then back to Lille or down to Nogent! Mother was constantly being asked to forward his letters - frequently to the Hotel de l'Espérance in Brussels and the Hotel Parisiens in Le Havre. It also seems from the postcards that he bought breeds other than Percherons. A postcard from the Nivernais district indicates he was buying horses from that region. There is also a postcard from Barcelona, which dates from the time when he first started going to Catalonia to buy Jackasses.

o~o

I think that this monograph (dated 1984) was written by my cousin, Nancy Powell, for a talk to some Basingstoke group. Nancy was born in Lille on 12th November 1906 and she died in Basingstoke on 16th January 1996, where she lived after escaping from France with her parents in the early days of the Second World War. I am fortunate in having in my possession the collection of postcards sent by 'Uncle Gerald', as I knew him, to Denise Powell, who died in 1924.

Rev. Bro. Brian Butler IC
email: bws.butler@virgin.net

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