The invention of the basset hound: breed, blood and the late Victorian dog fancy, 1865–1900

Abstract

In this article the authors explore the practices and conceptualisations of British dog breeding and the showing of pedigree dogs by the ‘the dog fancy’, focusing specifically on the story of a single breed: the basset hound. This was not simply a story of British dog fanciers appropriating a French dog breed; indeed, this was impossible because the very notion of a dog ‘breed’, defined by conformation and legitimated by pedigree, was in the process of invention. They show how the British dog-show fancy chose one, from many and varied types of French hound, to be the basset hound, and how this choice was legitimated by reference to an imagined history, where the British dog fancy rescued a noble animal from French indifference to breed and blood. The chosen physical form was standardised to arbitrary ideal, but was by means no static. In the spirit of the times, it was ‘improved’, first by the empirical methods of animal breeders, using pedigrees to secure good and pure ‘blood’, and then by the application of science, particularly artificial insemination and hereditarian theories.

Keywords::

• basset hound
• animal history
• Victorian science
• heredity
• Britain
• France
• breeding
• pedigree dogs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. Stonehenge, Dogs of the British Islands, editions in 1867, 1872, 1878 and 1882. The basset hound was first included in the 4^th edition in 1882.

^2. Balogh, “The Early History of the Basset Hound in England.”

^3. For a more recent history of pedigree animal breeding see Derry, Bred for Perfection; Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 82–121.

^4. Cheang, “Women, Pets and Imperialism,” 359–87. For a cultural history of the interlinked mythologies and national myths surrounding the pedigree English bloodhounds see: Pemberton, “Bloodhounds as Detectives,” 69–91.

^5. Skabelund, Empire of Dogs; Sittert and Swart, “Canis Familiaris,” 138–73; Swart, “Dogs and Dogma,” 190–206.

^6. Ritvo, The Animal Estate, 107–13.

^7. Ibid.

^8. Oliver, From Little Acorns, 7–8.

^9. Anon., “Prize Dogs,” 3b.

^10. Anon., “The Dog Show at Birmingham,” 8d.

^11. Advertisement, “MONSTER SHOW,” 1.

^12. Anon., “The Birmingham Dog Show of 1863,” 557.

^13. “W W,” Rules for Judging, 407.

^14. Jaquet, The Kennel Club, 1–11.

^15. Couteulx de Canteleu, “French Breed of Hounds,” PP; Couteulx de Canteleu, Les races de chiens courans français au XIXe siècle.

^16. “Wildfowler,” Shooting Adventures, 273.

^17. “Wildfowler,” Shooting Adventures, 60.

^18. Couteulx de Canteleu, “French Breed of Hounds,” 83.

^19. Krehl, “The Basset Hound,” 158.

^20. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, Scene 1.

^21. Turbeville, The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting.

^22. Krehl, “The Basset Hound,” 157–9.

^23. “Wildfowler,” Shooting Adventures, 267.

^24. Snapshot, “The Basset Hound,” 84.

^25. Shaw, Illustrated Book of the Dog, 333.

^26. Stonehenge, 1882.

^27. Krehl, “The Basset Hound,” 158.

^28. Millais was not the first person to own basset hounds in Britain. The Earl of Onslow had been given a different type – Millais, “Bassets”; Worboys, “Millais, Sir Everett.”

^29. Letter.

^30. Anon., “Paris Dog Show”; Anon., “Dog Show for the French Acclimatisation Society.”

^31. Walsh, Dogs of the British Islands, 157.

^32. Krehl, “The Basset Hound,” 157–61.

^33. Anon., “The Dog Show.”

^34. Cooper, The Model Wife, 176–8.

^35. Ibid., 177.

^36. Times, 4 June 1880, 6b; 25 August 1881, 9e; 6 July 1883, 3e; 4 December 1883, 7f; 1 December 1884, 7c; 4 February 1886, 12c; 2 July 1886, 3f.

^37. Illustrated London News, 29 May 1886, 6.

^38. Krehl, “The Basset Hound,” 160.

^39. Lane, Doggy Shows, 239–42.

^40. Anon., “H. R. H. The Princess of Wales's Pet Dogs;” Bolton, “H. R. H. The Princess of Wales”s Kennels;” Jessop, “The Princess of Wales's Dogs.”

^41. Drury, British Dogs, 208.

^42. Ibid., 213.

^43. Ibid., 214.

^44. Heape, “Artificial Insemination of Mammals,” 52–63; Millais, “Artificial Impregnation,” 256–8.

^45. Millais, “The Pathogenic Microbe of Distemper,” 856.

^46. O'Connor, British Physiologists, 534.

^47. Anon., Illustrated London News, 5 May 1884, 7c.

^48. Millais, Theory and Practice of Rational Breeding, 55.

^49. Ibid.

^50. Quoted by Balogh, “The Early History of the Basset Hound in England.”

^51. Millais, Theory and Practice of Rational Breeding, 49.

^52. Pick, Faces of Degeneration.

^53. Millais, Theory and Practice of Rational Breeding, 41.

^54. Maudsley, “An Address on Medical Psychology.”

^55. Millais, Theory and Practice of Rational Breeding.

^56. Galton Archive.

^57. Millais, “Artificial Impregnation,” 256.

^58. Heape, “The Artificial Insemination of Mammals,” 52–63.

^59. Millais, “Distemper,” 45–74.

^60. Millais, “Basset Bloodhounds.”

^61. Millais, Two Problems of Reproduction, 32.

^62. Ibid.

^63. Millais, Two Problems of Reproduction, 55.

^64. Millais, Theory and Practice of Rational Breeding, vii.

^65. Millais, “Two Problems of Reproduction,” 10

^66. Ibid., 33–7.

^67. Ibid., 29.

^68. Ibid.

^69. Ellis, “The Basset-Hound,” 303.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/H030808/1].

Notes on contributors

Neil Pemberton

Neil Pemberton is a Wellcome Research Associate in the Centre for the History of Medicine, Science and Technology at the University of Manchester. He has published a number of books and articles on a wide number of historical topics, including the rat-catching techniques and the history of the forensics of homicide.

Michael Worboys

Michael Worboys is a Emeritus Professor in the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of Manchester. He works on the history of infectious diseases and has recently published, with Neil Pemberton, Rabies in Britain: Dogs, Disease and Culture, 1830–2000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2012)