The annual Crufts dog show will be taking place this year at the NEC Birmingham, from 912 March. Organised and hosted by The Kennel Club, it is the largest show of its kind in the world.
Crufts is named after its founder Charles Crufts. Having no interest in joining the family jewellery business after leaving college in 1876, Charles decided instead to take employment with James Spratt who had set up a new venture in Holborn, London selling ‘dog cakes’. Charles Cruft was ambitious and a relatively short apprenticeship as an office boy led to a promotion to travelling salesman. This brought him into contact with large estates and sporting kennels. His next career move with Spratts saw him travelling to Europe and here in 1878, French dog breeders, perhaps seeing entrepreneurial talents in Cruft, invited him to organise the promotion of the canine section of the Paris Exhibition. He was still just two years out of college. Back in England in 1886 he took up the management of the Allied Terrier Club Show at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster. It was in 1891 that the first Cruft’s show was booked into the Royal Agricultural Hall in Islington with a total of 2437 competitors, and 36 breeds.
