Exhibition at Frome Road

Watercolour on paper painting of an exhibition at Frome Road, including figures and dwellings.

South Australia was only four years old when the first agricultural produce show was held in the yard of Fordham's Hotel, in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, in December 1840. From this modest beginning the Royal Adelaide Show of today has grown. In February 1843 the fourth horticultural show was held in the parklands in Frome Road (today's Botanic Park) under a marquee.

In February 1844 the Horticultural and Agricultural Societies combined as the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia and their first show was again held under marquees and tents in the same parklands. The Botanic Park site became an ever expanding display of marquees, stalls, booths and by 1853 the marquee was immensely long as depicted by Adamson.