THE SEPARATION OF THE BREEDS
From
the earliest days of its show history it was recognised in West Wales
that there were two quite distinct versions of the Corgi. The dogs
favoured in the hills of central and northern Cardiganshire were larger
and longer than those found further south, and always carried a full
tail. From the first, the rivalry between the supporters of the two
versions was intense. In 1925 the Kennel Club recognised the Welsh Corgi,
but did not distinguish between the two varieties and the problems which
ensued were to last for nine years. In
1925 a band of pioneers who were principally interested in promoting the
Pembrokeshire type founded The Corgi Club (when it was registered with
the Kennel Club a year later, the adjective "Welsh" was
incorporated into the title in order to satisfy Kennel Club requirements)
and by the end of that year it was already a powerful body with nearly
80 members, over 60 of which lived in Pembrokeshire, and with its own
list of club judges. In
1926 a group of breeders met to form the Cardigan Corgi Club with the
object to support and further the interests of the old type of the
Cardiganshire Corgi. Some live dogs of different types had been brought
along as examples and the question of type was discussed, but no
standard was drawn up. However, at a later meeting it was decided to
present a special prize at a show for the most typical Cardigan dog or
bitch. Several
attempts were subsequently made to amalgamate the Cardigan Corgi Club
with the Welsh Corgi Club but as the Pembrokeshire deputation insisted
on the Rules and Standard of Points (including the docking of tails!) as
laid down by them in their book of Rules nothing came of this. First
in 1928 the Cardigan Corgi Club, at their AGM on 27 April, discussed a
standard of points and three months later, on 19 July, the first
standard for the Cardiganshire Corgi was adopted by the Committee. But
let us return to 1925 when the Welsh Corgi was recognised by the Kennel
Club and from then onward were being exhibited at shows held under
Kennel Club jurisdiction, and, even more important, were being judged by
specialist judges. The
first important show was the Royal Welsh Agricultural Show, held on 5
August 1925 at Carmarthen where there were two classes for Corgis in
"Any Other Variety not classified"
to be judged by Mr J.W. Marples. (A Variety Class is one in which
more than one breed or variety of a breed can compete). The winners of
the Open Dog class were Buller
and Ted, both of the
Pembrokeshire type, but the first Open Bitch was Miss C.A. Griffiths'
Cardiganshire Corgi Bellorophon
(Prince x Quick, both
unregistered). This bitch did a lot of winning and bred some good stock.
It
is difficult to trace Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire Corgi pedigrees
very far back with accuracy as the early dogs were not registered with
the Kennel Club and what pedigrees were kept were not always properly
written down. Many of the early breeders were Welsh farmers who found it
difficult to cope with pedigree forms in which they would have to write
down by hand scores of names of dogs many of which would be in English
and not in their native language. They did, however, try to preserve
some permanent form of pedigree by means of copybooks, scrapbooks and
loose sheets of paper covered with names of dogs. At
the sixth annual show held on 26 August 1925 at Llangeitho, right in the
heart of Cardiganshire, the Cardigan Corgis took all the prizes. They
appeared in the class for "Curs" (working dogs) and were
judged by Mr T. Williams. It
is interesting to note that the classes at the Royal Welsh Agricultural
Show of 1925 were for "Corgwn" (the proper Welsh spelling for
the plural of Corgi) while the classification at Llangeitho in the same
year was for "Curs". This was not only in keeping with the old
nomenclature for the Corgi as in the 1890's but even with contemporary
and in a few cases later shows. At the smaller events of 1925-26, not
held under Kennel Club rules, the Corgi was entered under different
names such as the Cur, the Corgi or the Sodlwr (Welsh for heeler). The
Lampeter show held by the Lampeter Agricultural Society on 24 September
1926 had classes for "Sodlwr", one for dogs and one for
bitches. The judge was Mr J. Jordan Jones, Llanarth, the first chairman
of the original Cardigan Corgi Club (this name was, at the request of
the Kennel Club, changed to Cardigan Welsh Corgi Club. In 1931 it was
changed to Welsh Corgi Association and finally in 1946 the current name
of Cardigan Welsh Corgi Association was registered). At this show the
celebrated red and white Cardigan Corgi Bob
Llwyd, born 1917 (Bowlin x
Handy, both unregistered), made his first major appearance and was
the winner of the Open Dog class. Bob
Llwyd, owned by Dr J.T. Lloyd of Tregaron, was the most influential
stud dog at the time and the first standard for the Cardiganshire type
was based on him. He lived to the ripe old age of 18 years and according
to J.K. Linacre (Dog World, 24.09.1976) all today's Cardigans trace back
to him. In 1927, he was BOB at Crufts, but as yet there were no CCs on
offer for the Corgis. (According to Charles Lister-Kaye, "The
Popular Welsh Corgi", Crufts 1927 had separate classes for the two
types!!). The
official debut was first in 1928 when the Welsh Corgi was taken off the
register of "Any Other Variety not classified" at the Kennel
Club, added to the list of "Non-sporting" breeds and granted
Challenge Certificates (in the UK the title of champion is awarded to
dogs who have won three Challenge Certificates (CCs) under three
separate judges at Championship shows only). This was naturally a
tremendous step in the right direction and a goodly muster of both types
faced the judge at Crufts' famous Championship Show at the Agricultural
Hall in London although there were no CCs on offer for Corgis at that
show that year. As yet, and for many years to come, the breed was known
simply as Welsh Corgis (the Kennel Club refused to recognise "distinctions
based on geographical location") and the day when Cardigans and
Pembrokes were recognised as separate breeds was far away. CCs at Crufts
were first granted to Corgis in 1929 and until 1934, when the breeds
were separated, all CCs were won by Pembrokeshire Corgis. The
very first CCs for Corgis were granted at the show in Cardiff on 25 July
1928 and both were awarded to Pembroke Corgis. The dog CC was awarded to
the only 6 months old Fairmay
Fondo (Bowhit Pepper x Shan)
and the bitch CC went to his litter sister Shan
Fach. In 1928 there were two more shows with CCs for Corgis, the
first on 23 August in Worcester and the second, on 10-11 October, was
the Kennel Club's show at the Crystal Palace in London. The
first Champion Corgi (of either breed) was Ch.
Shan Fach. She was a red bitch born in January 1928. The
first Cardigan to gain the champion title was the dog Golden
Arrow, born 1928 (Bob Llwyd
x Ruby). This happened at the South Wales Kennel Association Show in
July 1931 and only few minutes later Nell
of Twyn, born 1925 (Jack x
Nell, both unregistered),
became the first Cardigan champion bitch. Lots of
people attended these shows, and particularly Crufts where this new
breed attracted much attention. The Corgis gained many admirers, though
the public in general were very much mystified by the wide variance in
type displayed in the ring. After all, one specimen of a pure breed
usually resembles another to a great extent, even if it differs in the
finer points. Yet the little Pembrokes with their stumpy tails, and the
bigger Cardigans with their foxy brushes were all Welsh Corgis though
they looked quite different! And, in addition, both types contained
Corgis of all sorts – long, short, high, low, big, small, heavy,
slight, short hair, long hair, and many other differences. Although
started with such great enthusiasm, the actual progress of the breed
during the years 1927 to 1930 was lamentably slow and Corgis remained in
every way at much the same level. Corgis were very erratic in type;
people often laughed at them and called them "mongrels" and
there was a depressing lack of enthusiasm and interest on the part of
show secretaries when classes for the breed were suggested. However,
in 1931 and 1932 an era of prosperity for the breed began (that is
chiefly the Pembrokeshire type) and this was really the start of its
remarkable rise to popularity which was further boosted when in 1933
King George VI (then still Duke of York) acquired a Pembroke puppy for
the Princess Elizabeth. Registrations suddenly began to increase, a
number of new exhibitors started swelling the entries to shows and
several dog shows hitherto disinterested, successfully included classes
for the Welsh Corgis in their schedules. These classes were, for some
reason or another, filled and supported almost exclusively by the owners
of the Pembrokeshire type. There always seemed to be some idea that if
the judge selected was a Cardiganshire type fancier, he would favour his
type and penalise the Pembrokes, and vice versa, and unfortunately this
often was the case. It could also happen that one CC went to one breed
and one to the other. Entries suffered accordingly, and although
all-round judges were frequently chosen rather than specialist judges,
in the hope that the prospect of awards unbiased in favour of either
type would encourage entries in these cases, the Cardigans were often
the losers because the all-round judges did not understand the two
types, and when looking for the straight front required in a Pembroke
Corgi, would penalise a Cardigan with a bowed front, unaware that this
point was really quite correct. This state of affairs was very
unsatisfactory for both varieties, and taking it all round, it was the
Cardigans which suffered most. According
to Pembroke breeders Thelma Gray (Rozavel) and John Holmes (Formakin)
between 50 and 60 percent of the Pembrokeshire type were born with a
natural bobtail and until 1931 it was customary to dock any long or
half-tailed puppies. In July of that year, however, the Kennel Club
passed a rule prohibiting this, and it was this rule that led to a lot
of the confusion between the two types that existed among the public in
general. Exactly why this rule was passed has never been clearly
understood, but the general impression has been that the proposal was
made by some of the Cardigan type breeders, who presumably hoped that
the Pembroke Corgis would be almost exclusively born with long tails and
that the rule would settle the differences between the two types by
merging the two breeds into one. But instead of solving the existing
difficulties, the move led to even greater rivalry and dissatisfaction
and it would have been far better for the two breeds if the rule had
never been passed at all. The
Pembrokes continued to be born with a natural bob, but sufficient of
their number still arrived with full-length tails to get everyone
beautifully muddled as to what was a Pembroke and what was a Cardigan.
The persistence, however, with which the natural "bobs"
cropped up made the fact that it was a true characteristic of the breed
more and more obvious. However, the docking ban remained in force in
spite of tremendous efforts on the part of the Welsh Corgi Club and its
members to get it repealed. (The Welsh Corgi League was first founded in
1938). 1934
stands out as a milestone in Corgi history. In September that year, the
Kennel Club listened to the arguments put forward, and the Pembrokeshire
Corgi was added to the list of breeds in which docking is permitted. At
the same time the Kennel Club granted separate registrations for the two
types. All Welsh Corgis born on or after October 16, 1934 could only be
registered as pure bred under either heading if both parents were
recognised as belonging to their respective type. This ruling allowed a
cross between a Cardigan and a Pembroke to be registered either as a
Cardigan or a Pembroke, provided that the animal had been born before
October 16, 1934, but it also allowed a pure bred Pembroke to be
registered as a Cardigan, or vice versa, if born before that date. Each
of the Clubs, the Welsh Corgi Club (Pembrokes) and the Welsh Corgi
Association (Cardigans), delegated a specialist to the Kennel Club to
examine the registrations made to that date and to decide which dogs
were Cardigan and which Pembroke Corgis. The sorting out was a difficult
task for the two types had been interbred to some extent so that there
were many Pembrokes containing Cardigan blood and vice versa. For
instance, the noted Cardigan dog Ch.
My Rockin' Mawr was sired by the Pembroke Bowhit
Pepper out of Fancy. Fancy was a daughter of the Pembroke Ch. Bonnie Gyp out of Nellie
and had four Cruft wins to her credit. And, as Pembrokes were not
allowed to be docked between July 1931 and September 1934, it actually
happened on more than one occasion that a long-tailed pure bred Pembroke
puppy turned out more Cardigan than Pembroke in type, quite apart from
his long tail and the owner of such a dog could thus register him as a
Cardigan. However, in the majority of cases there was no problem, stock
had been kept separate and distinct, and when it was impossible to
classify the dogs as either Cardigans or Pembrokes, the Kennel Club
wrote to the owners asking them to state the classification they
considered correct for their dogs. This
business of separating the two breeds, which in reality had been poles
apart in everything but name for years, was indeed a wise move on the
part of the Kennel Club and was an immense help to those working to
popularise the breeds. Registrations showed an immediate increase, all
the past rivalry concerning judging was forgotten, and breeders of both
types settled down with the barriers between them removed, and with
nothing to prevent either breed achieving the popularity so richly
deserved. In
1934, there were nine shows with CCs for Corgis, and the first seven
were still for both types mixed, but for the Kennel Club Show on 10 and
11 October of that year, separate classes for Welsh Corgis (Pembroke)
and Welsh Corgis (Cardigan) were scheduled and for the first time
certificates were offered for each type. A few weeks later, Birmingham
catered for the two breeds in a similar manner and thus ended 1934. It
was indeed a momentous year for those who had been working so long to
get the two types of Corgis recognised as the two entirely different
breeds they are. When
the division of the two breeds was completed, it was found that the
Pembrokes were registered in larger numbers (240 were classified as
Pembrokes while 59 Corgis were classified as Cardigans) and so, when the
CCs were granted for 1935, the Cardigans were allowed fewer CCs than the
Pembrokes. Both types competed for Championship honours at Crufts,
Cheltenham, Cardiff, the Kennel Club, and Birmingham shows, and in
addition Pembrokes had CCs at the Ladies Kennel Association, Taunton,
and Abergavenny Championship shows. Based
on: Clifford
L.B. Hubbard: The Cardiganshire Corgi & The Pembrokeshire Corgi Thelma
Gray: The Welsh Corgi, Pembrokeshire & Cardiganshire Types and
edited by Anita Nordlunde September
2005 |