Robert Bakewell of Dishley

If you went to Robert Bakewell School in Dishley or perhaps stayed in Robert Bakewell Hall of residence at Loughborough University you will have! If you studied biology at school he may have crossed your path too. Of course, he is a major figure featured in Charnwood Museum too. And he was very familar to Charles Darwin half a century after his death and by Gregor Mendel the founder of modern gentetics. In fact it was in Gregor Mendel's museum in the Czech Republic that I realised his full importance. In their hierarchy, "Robert Bakewell of Loughborough" lay at the genesis of all their future learning in heredity.
Returning to Loughborough I joined the New Dishley Society and quickly learnt that Bakewell was equally known in Europe in the 18th century as at home.

He received visits from Coke of Norfolk, Francois de la Rochfoucauld and Prince Gigory Potemkin from Russia. Bakewell's farm at Dishley took apprentices from across Europe to learn how new species of cattle and sheep could be created by close interbreeding whilst using very scientific measurements (and ignoring irelevant factors like colour). Victorian reticence surrounding interbreeding (breeding-in-and-in) may be why his ground breaking works later lacked the popular recognition it deserved. Bakewell was also known for some ingenious engneering of canals to irrigate his estate. Unfortunately all the copious notes of his work were lost after his death and little remains of his irregation system either.

The Dishley Village sign.

A village sign for Dishley was officially unveiled on 9th July 2003 at the corner of Warwick Way and Derby Road, It is currently being refurbished. Artist Roger Hutchinson and Robert Bakewell Primary School in Dishley worked on the project for eighteen months. A huge concrete base supported the heavy golden oak frame covered with thirty dazzling mosaics that showed local fauna and flora from quacking ducks to slimy snails.

The Bakewell Heritage
Charnwood Borough Council has previously been committed to celebrating Robert Bakewell and he is featured in Charnwood's small museum in Queens Park. In the last decade the council resolved to place a monument near the Grange as follows "scheme of public art based on the theme of Robert Bakewell, on the entry into the development, such scheme to be of a minimum value of £50,000", Unfortunately, the development funding it was never built.
A new road is being constructed from Bakewell's farm on the A6. Will the Council name it after Robert Bakewell or have they overlooked the great man?