Eileen Bartram Perpetual Trophy
The Eileen Bartram Perpetual Trophy for Best Welsh Exhibit at the Royal Melbourne Show was first awarded in 1979.
One of the best-known women competitors
From 1917, Eileen Hunter competed in agricultural shows. After her marriage to Harold Bartram, she showed ponies, horses, cats and dogs at the Royal Melbourne Show and elsewhere. She lost count of the prizes she won.
Only women staff at the View Bank Stud
Both Mr and Mrs Bartram were innovators. He had a model dairy exploring new processes at View Bank Stud at Heidelberg. She relied only on female staff to breed Shetlands, Welsh ponies, and polo ponies.
Like Mrs ADD Maclean of Yan Yean, with her Fenwick Stud of pure bred Arabs and Shetlands, Bartram’s ponies were bred, and prepared for showing entirely by women. Both Maclean and Bartram employed only women at their studs, for they believed that women handled horses better than men. (The Argus, 21 September 1950)
Bartram won her own trophy prize
Mrs Bartram was still an active pony breeder in 1979 and was the first winner of the perpetual trophy. She last competed in 1984.
Mandy Bede
…Out on the grassy, sloping paddocks of View Bank, you'll find her shaggy, quaint family of 80 Shetlands and Welsh Mountain ponies.
One of the best-known woman competitors, Mrs H Bartram, of Heidelberg will be there. ...She and her daughter live in a caravan during the Show. As rules prohibit women from living at the showgrounds, they will park in the grounds of the nearest house, which is the home of show secretary Mr Louis Monod and his wife.