100 Years of Corgi History
Have you realized the significance of this month in Pembroke (indeed Corgi) history?Well, August 2019 marks the centenary of the publishing of the first Kennel Club registrations for the Corgi. Official registration date was in April 1919, but it is the August Kennel Gazette for that year which lists the first two names.
Unregistered dogs in italics
(Notice the spelling of Corgi!)
Of the two, we are told that the first to be registered was the bitch Rose, owned and bred by J. Davies of Solva, sired by J. Lloyd's Tim out of Teddie. The other is her litter brother Casement, owned by T.H. Gwyther and presumably named after the Irish patriot who had been executed not long before. They were born on April 25, 1917 so were 'war babies'. So this was where it all started!
Rose
A year later, several of Rose's progeny were registered: Flary, Freda, Maud, Solva Jim and Taff, born in August 1919 and sired by her brother Casement, and Solva Eliza, born in March 1920 and by J. Jenkins' Freddy.
Rose was clearly a laster for she was still in good enough form to be exhibited in the first Pembroke classes to be scheduled at Crufts in 1927, where she was second in open bitch with her granddaughter Solva Rosebud first and her daughter Phoebe third. BOB that day was her grandson Caleb (a son of Phoebe) and he can lay claim to being the first influential stud dog of the breed's history as a show dog.
Caleb at Crufts
Thank you then to Rose and to her breeder Mr Davies for taking the initiative in making the breed 'official'.
Simon Parsons
21 August 2019
28.08.2019
