The West Mid Show is being placed into voluntary liquidation after more than 120 years, it was revealed today.

It is understood the show owes more than £160,000 to about 50 creditors.

The show trustees voted to bring in an insolvency specialist after being advised that the Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society, the registered charity behind the event, could no longer continue trading.

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Show treasurer Keith Winter today confirmed the society was going to be placed into voluntary liquidation. He said all other options to keep the society going, including a company voluntary arrangement, had been explored.

He said: “I was appointed as treasurer in March. We have been fighting to keep it going. We have been trying to get money in. I insisted we got an insolvency practitioner in and the trustees had a vote on Wednesday afternoon and agreed to put it in voluntary liquidation.”

Mr Winter said the show was not expecting any income in the next three months, which would have made continuing to trade impossible. It is believed that the society had hoped to receive a cash boost from an investor, but this had not been forthcoming.

A creditors’ meeting is expected to be called in the next two to three weeks for about 50 individuals and companies owed more than £160,000, with claims ranging from a few pounds to £25,000.

Yesterday show organisers were forced to cancel a major firework display. The event, designed to mark the close of the bi-centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin, was due to take place tomorrow.

But officials at the West Midlands Agricultural Society said they had experienced financial problems because of the recession and demands from suppliers means the event could not go ahead.

Earlier this year the society said it needed at least £50,000 to help it through the recession and slow winter months. Society bosses recently vowed that the two-day show itself was not under threat and would continue despite the problems as they issued a rallying call to businesses and residents to pledge their support.

For well over a century the West Mid Show has been the highlight of Shropshire’s farming calendar. The first show was held in The Quarry, Shrewsbury, on May 29 and 30, 1875, covering agriculture, poultry and horticulture.

For many years the show was a “moveable feast”, held as far afield as Wrexham, Stourport and Knighton.

It was held first at its present riverside site off Berwick Road in 1897 and has since been staged there annually with the exception of the war years and the three years that The Royal Show was held in Shropshire.

The West Mid, organised by the Shropshire and West Midlands Agricultural Society, steadily grew in stature until it became recognised as the premier two-day agricultural show in the country, regularly attracting well over 50,000 people.