PRESENTED BY
THE DOMESDAY BOOK OF DOGS
Manchester Terrier.
 |
| Manchester Terrier circa 1914 |
 |
| A small pack of ratters. Kingston Walters. |
It is generally considered that this breed is the modern equivalent of the old English black-and-tan Terrier but as Brian Vesey-Fitgerald points out in The Domestic Dog, An Introduction To Its History, the Manchester Terrier is smooth-coated but the English black-and-tan Terrier was a larger, rough-coated dog.
Without a doubt the Manchester Terrier's forte lies in small vermin control. The breed was hardly ever used as an earth dog, being primarily used for rabbit coursing and for contests in the rat pits. Dogs competed in turn to see which one could slay, say, 100 rats the fastest. Rabbit coursing was different; large numbers of rabbits would be released one at a time for a pair of dogs to chase, the rabbit was given perhaps sixty yards law and then the dogs were released. Whichever dog caught the rabbit would go through to the next round. There might be thirty-two dogs at the start of the evening (sixteen pairs), these would be whittled down in a knockout competition, 32 - 16 - 8 and so on until there were only two dogs left in the final, the winner of this final match being the overall winner. Brian Plummer suggests that whereas the original stock would have been sundry terriers of the day large amounts of Greyhound and Italian Greyhound blood would have been added to each successive generation as each competitor attempted to gain an advantage over his rivals thus producing as an end product stock that eventually morphed into Whippets and Manchester Terriers.
 |
| Brian Plummer's hypothesis about the production of the Manchester Terrier and the Whippet. |
 |
| English White Terrier and Manchester Terriers |
Dogs of all nations
W.E. Mason, 1915
Dogs in Britain, Clifford Hubbard, 1948.
MacMillan & Co., London.
The Sporting Terrier, D. Brian Plummer, 1992.
Tideline Books
The Heritage Of The Dog, Colonel David Hancock MBE
Nimrod Press Limited, 15, The Maltings, Turk Street,
Alton, Hants GU34 1DL
English White Terrier
English Terrier
