Today in History

1953 Godfrey Bowen sets world sheep-shearing record

At the Akers station at Opiki, Manawatu, Godfrey Bowen set a new world record when he sheared 456 full-wool ewes in nine hours. Bowen helped establish sheep shearing as a legitimate sport and was one of the inaugural inductees into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.

The importance of agriculture in New Zealand has long been demonstrated through competitions involving wood chopping, dog trialling and sheep shearing at events such as A & P shows and field days. In the period after the Second World War the name Bowen became synonymous with the development of sheep shearing as a hugely popular spectator sport. Godfrey and his brother Ivan revolutionised the wool industry through their improved shearing methods – the ‘Bowen technique’ – which added value to the national clip and helped lift the profile of shearing as a sport and tourist attraction.

After breaking the world record Godfrey became chief shearing instructor for the New Zealand Wool Board. In 1954 he helped establish courses on the subject at Lincoln and Massey Universities. In 1960 he was awarded an MBE for his services to the sheep industry.

He gained international recognition travelling the world teaching the ‘Bowen technique’ in Commonwealth countries and places as diverse as Japan, Afghanistan, Argentina, India, Pakistan and the Soviet Union. In 1963, at a ceremony in the Kremlin, Premier Nikita Khrushchev awarded Bowen with the two top Soviet honours: Hero of Labour and the Star of Lenin.

In 1971 Bowen and local farmer George Harford opened the Agrodome near Rotorua. Described as a ‘theme park dedicated to the New Zealand farm’, the Agrodome played a crucial role in the development of rural tourism and became the benchmark for similar ventures.

After one of Bowen's earlier trips to Britain, the Guardian described the shearer at work, in a manner that would have had many a Kiwi shearer wincing:

Godfrey Bowen's arms flow with the grace of a Nureyev shaping up to an arabesque, or a Barbirolli bringing in the cellos. Watching him shear is even more remarkable than seeing a finely tuned machine.

Godfrey Bowen died in 1994 at the age of 72.

Image: Godfrey Bowen in action (DNZB)