AdminHistory | Adam Stout was raised in the City but left at 16 to become a cowman. He 'retained an enduring fascination for 'the urban fringe' in all its aspects: literal to psychological and even mystical'.
He discovered the subject of East End Cowkeepers 'and the amazing revelation that cows were to be found in the inner city until the 1950s'. Stout wrote about the cowkeepers to the East End press and the Jewish Chronicle and receive many replies. From this the 'Farmers Weekly' article grew and Stout received 'minor celebrity' with contacts from the press and television.
In 1986 he was approached by Nigel Winfield, co-ordinator of Stepping Stones City Farm 'with the view to producing an exhibition on the subject. I did a lot of the research again (and much more thoroughly), and with Stepping Stones and a local history group (Stepney Regardant) produced a pretty good exhibition'. This toured London including a Welsh cultural centre in Dyfed, Wales - most of the cowkeepers and many London dairymen were Welsh.
Stout continued to live in Dyfed area, Wales.
Source: letter from Stout to Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, received 10 October 1997 supplying a brief biography to the background to the collection (accession file: TH/8774) |