Alnclair Golden Retrievers
Breed History
The
History of the Golden Retriever (Information courtesy of the UK Golden Retriever
Council)
Unlike many breeds, the
development of the Golden Retriever in historical terms is fairly recent,
and thanks to the painstaking research carried out by breed historians,
firstly the late Elma Stonex, and latterly Val Foss and Frank and Anne
Weekes, the history is quite defined and documented.
The breed originated from
a series of matings carried out by Lord Tweedmouth from 1864 onwards. The
starting point was his acquisition of a good looking yellow coloured Flat
Coated Retriever which he took to his estate at Guisechan, near Inverness
in Scotland. He mated this dog to a Tweed Water Spaniel, a breed now long
extinct, and then bred on from the offspring of this mating using the
occasional outcross to an Irish Setter, a second Tweed Water Spaniel and a
black Flat Coated Retriever. The dogs produced proved to be grand workers,
biddable and attractive. Puppies from the matings were given to friends
and family, notably his nephew, Lord Ilchester, who also bred them. The
dogs bred true to type, and so the forerunners of the breed we know today
were established.
It was not until 1908
that the breed came into the public eye. Lord Harcourt had formed a great
liking for the breed, and had gathered on to his estate at Nuneham Park,
Oxford, a collection of the dogs descended from the original matings. He
decided to exhibit them at the Kennel Club Show in 1908, where they
created great interest. They were entered in a class for Any Variety
Retriever, and described as Yellow Flatcoated Retrievers. The term 'Golden
Retriever' was first coined around this time, and has been attributed to
Lord Harcourt.
Once they had been seen
by the general public, there were many people that wanted to own one for
them selves, and the breeds popularity was assured. One of the people that
saw them and acquired one for herself was Mrs Charlesworth, who became the
greatest enthusiast the breed has ever had. From 1910 when she acquired
her first Golden, until her death in 1954, she championed the cause of the
breed against allcomers, and nagged her fellow enthusiasts remorselessly
to keep the breed as a true dual purpose dog. She, it was who organised
her fellow enthusiasts into forming a Golden Retriever Club in 1911,
writing a breed standard, and campaigning for the breed to be registered
with the Kennel Club as a separate breed. (The Kennel Club had previously
registered them as Flatcoated Retrievers). The breed was accepted by the
Kennel Club in 1913, and an allocation of Challenge Certificates was made
the same year. The race had already been on to see who could win the first
Field Trial award with a Golden, and the honour had fallen in 1912 to
Captain Hardy with his bitch Vixie, who went on to become an influential
dam in the breed. The honour of winning the first C.C.'s on offer proved
to be an anti-climax.
One enthusiast, Col Le
Poer Trench, insisted that the Golden had developed from a breed found in
Russia, and had persuaded the Kennel Club to register his dogs as Yellow
Russian Retrievers. At Crufts Dog show in 1913, there were classes for
Goldens and for Russian Retrievers, but only one set of C.c.'s The best
Goldens had to challenge the best Russians for the C.c.'s, and the
Russians won both of them! At the next show, however, there were Challenge
Certificates exclusively for Goldens, and the honour of being the first to
win a C.C. went to Mrs Charlesworth's dog Normanby Sandy and Mr F. W.
Herbert's bitch Coquette. The race was then on to win 3 C.c.'s and a Field
Trial award and thus become the first Golden Champion, an honour achieved
by Mrs Charlesworth with her dog Noranby Campfire. All canine activities
came to a halt as the First World War grew in intensity, but the Golden
Retriever had done enough to establish itself in the canine world, and the
hearts of the dog owning public.
See below the full range of acceptable colours for Golden Retrievers
Photo courtesy of Brian Booth - Monbryth Golden Retrievers, Wilts, UK
Click here to read the Golden Retriever BREED STANDARD
