Oldest profession

Droving is the practice of walking livestock over long distances. Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. An owner might entrust an agent to deliver stock to market and bring back the proceeds. There has been droving since people in cities found it necessary to source food from distant supplies.
One individual cannot both take care of animals on a farm and take stock on a long journey to market. So the owner might entrust this stock to an agent—usually a drover—who will deliver the stock to market and bring back the proceeds. Drovers took their herds and flocks down traditional routes with organised sites for overnight shelter and fodder for men and for animals.
The journey might last from a few days to months. The animals had to be driven carefully so they would be in good condition on arrival. There would have to be prior agreement for payment for stock lost; for animals born on the journey, for sales of produce created during the journey. Until provincial banking developed, a drover returning to base would be carrying substantial sums of money. Being in a position of great trust, the drover might carry to the market town money to be banked and important letters and take with them people not familiar with the road.
Drovers might take the stock no more than a part of their journey because some stock might be sold at intervening markets to other drovers. The new drovers would finish the delivery.
Droving stock to market—usually on foot and often with the aid of dogs—has a very long history in the Old World. There has been droving since people in cities found it necessary to source food from distant supplies. Romans are said to have had drovers and their flocks following their armies to feed their soldiers.
Cattle drives were an important feature of the settlement of both the western United States and of Australia. In 1866, cattle drives in the United States moved 20 million head of cattle from Texas to railheads in Kansas. In Australasia, long distance drives of sheep also took place. In these countries these drives covered great distances—800 miles (1,300 km) Texas to Kansas—with drovers on horseback, supported by wagons or packhorses. Drives continued until railways arrived. In some circumstances driving very large herds long distances remains economic.
A weekly cattle market was founded midway between North Wales and London in Newent, Gloucestershire in 1253. In an Ordinance for the cleansing of Smythfelde dated 1372 it was agreed by the "dealers and drovers" to pay a charge per head of horse, ox, cow, sheep or swine.
Henry V brought about a lasting boom in droving in the early fifteenth century when he ordered as many cattle as possible be sent to the Cinque Ports to provision his armies in France.
An act passed by Edward VI to safeguard his subject's herds and money required drovers, from the mid-sixteenth century, to be approved and licensed by the district court or Quarter Sessions there proving they were of good character, married, householders and over 30 years of age. Considerable expertise meant that flocks averaging 1,500 to 2,000 head of sheep travelled 20 to 25 days from Wales to London yet lost less than four per cent of their body weight. Obliged to trek much further than from Wales, Scottish drovers would buy the cattle outright and drive them to London.
It has been estimated that by the end of the 18th century around 100,000 cattle and 750,000 sheep arrived each year at London's Smithfield market from the surrounding countryside. Railways brought an end to most droving around the middle of the 19th century.
Turkeys and geese for slaughter were also driven to London's market in droves of 300 to 1,000 birds.
Drovers also took animals to other major industrial centres in the UK (such as South Wales, the Midlands, the Manchester region).