How a bullbaiting dog became a beloved British icon
From its beginnings as a bull-baiting dog to its place beside Winston Churchill, Agnes Stamp explores the bulldog’s remarkable transformation into one of Britain’s most iconic breeds.
‘Ugh! What hideous brutes!’ was the remark overheard by Country Life’s correspondent attending the Bulldog Club show in 1904. However, as the magazine reported only five years earlier, only the ‘uninitiated’ call a bulldog ugly, and ‘those who are admitted to the privilege of a bulldog’s friendship know that no other cast of features is so expressive of all the kindly and good emotions’.
It may be that the bulldog’s rugged appearance is a ‘cultivated taste’, stated the magazine in 1939, ‘but at second glance we understand that he is not half so bad as he looks. He is reliable partly because he has a quiet confidence in his own powers, and, like most strong men, he is not going to presume on his own strength.’
Of all Britain’s native breeds of dog, the bulldog is the one most associated with our desirable national characteristics. Staunch and stoic, whether at home or abroad, matter-of-fact John Bull is not correctly depicted unless there is a bulldog at his side. Indeed, synonymous with ‘tenacity, courage, and determination’, the bulldog is the very symbol of Britain and, as Country Life noted in 1995, ‘in times of national peril, the bulldog appears in cartoons, festooned in the Union Jack, jaw thrust forward with determination, eyes indicating that not an inch of ground will be yielded’.
Country Life’s July 22, 2009 cover.
As their name suggests, they were originally bred to bait bulls, a brutal pastime that would be enjoyed by many in Britain, including Henry VIII, both his daughters, and James I. The earliest recorded bull-baiting took place at Stamford in Lincolnshire in 1205. William, Earl Warren, of Stamford in Lincolnshire, is said to have enjoyed watching a recalcitrant bull being chased and chivvied through the marketplace by a butcher’s dogs. He granted the town a piece of land so the tussle could take place annually.
Derived from the same line as mastiffs, bulldogs were referred to in The Mayster of Game (1413) as the ‘alaunt of the boucherie’ and described as being large, short-headed, pugnacious, and inclined to hold on when attacking. The bulldog is first mentioned in literature under various names in about 1500 — Bondedogge, Banddogge and Boldogge — and by 1630 it is quite clear from letters of the period that bulldogs and mastiffs were certainly different breeds.
Reporting for duty: a British bulldog in RAF uniform at RAF Iver Heath.
The gladiatorial heavyweight may have had a disreputable past by modern standards, but it certainly did not put off would-be owners. Lord Byron liked powerful dogs — perhaps a reaction to his own physical shortcomings, having been born with a club foot — and in 1807 he acquired two bulldogs at Cambridge. The first was Savage, and then Smut, an animal bred for bullbaiting and considerably nimbler and more ferocious than his modern counterpart.
During Lord Byron’s time in Italy, it is said that he pestered continually for English-bred bulldogs to be sent to him, claiming that the Italian variety lacked ‘the tenacity of tooth and stoicism of his canine fellow citizens’.
The 19th century sounded the death knell for the old bull-baiting type of bulldog when, after much controversy and discussion, Parliament passed the Cruelty to Animals Act in 1835, abolishing the ‘sport’. In Dogs: Their History and Development of 1927, Edward Ash wrote: ‘When bull-baiting ended, the dog was bred for “fancy”, and characteristics desired at an earlier time for fighting and baiting purposes were exaggerated.’
All aboard: an HMS Kestrel bulldog mascot takes to the skies.
The increasing popularity of dog showing would give the breed a second chance. However, the pages of Country Life would record the debate about the ‘modifications’ to the bulldog’s appearance.
An English bulldog at the American Kennel Club in New York.
In 1931, Arthur Croxton Smith would note that: ‘In some respects they improved the appearance, replacing the repellant-looking head with one that is distinctive and rather fascinating with its ruggedness. Since the War, however, in many instances we have lost the old body properties, especially the tapering hindquarters and tucked up belly, and here breeders have ample scope for their abilities. Most emphatically, bulldogs ought not to be shown in a condition in which hard muscle is replaced by fat.’
However, Stonehenge pleaded for the perpetuation of the pure breed: ‘If it is allowed to drop, the best means of infusing fresh courage into degenerate strains will be finally lost, except with the addition of extraneous blood, which may not suit them; for I believe that every kind of dog possessed of very high courage owes it to a cross with the bulldog.’
Lewis Hamilton with his beloved bulldog, Roscoe.
The modern breed was accepted by The Kennel Club in 1873 — the Bulldog Club is the oldest single breed club in the world — and the bulldog remains a Churchillian symbol that has captivated Lewis Hamilton, David Beckham, Ozzy Osbourne and Brad Pitt.
The bulldog — a national symbol famously associated with Winston Churchill.
The title of a 1960 comedy starring Norman Wisdom remains one of the most resonant bits of alliteration in our language — The Bulldog Breed.
This is an extract from 'The Country Life Book of Dogs' (Rizzoli, £50) by Agnes Stamp.
