How it all started: The development of Crufts Dog Show
Crufts is named after its founder Charles Cruft. The young Charles leaving college in
1876 had no desire to join the family jewellery business. Instead he took 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 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.
The first Crufts show in that name was booked into the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington
in 1891. This was the first in a long series of shows there. During this era it was
possible for individuals to run shows for personal profit, an aspect that appealed
mightily to Charles Cruft, and he ran his shows with considerable profit to himself.
Today there are no privately owned dog shows and permission to hold shows is
granted by the Kennel Club which licenses only non-commercial organisations.
In 1938 Charles Cruft died and his widow ran the 1939 show. Three years later Mrs
Cruft felt the responsibility for running the show too demanding and, in order to
perpetuate the name of the show her husband had made world famous, she asked the
Kennel Club to take it over and it was sold to them; 1948 was the first show under the
Kennel Club auspices. Held at Olympia, it proved an immediate success with both
exhibitors and the public. Since then Crufts has increased in stature year by year.
In 1979 it was decided to change the venue from Olympia to Earls Court as the
increasing entries had the show bursting at the seams. In 1982 the show ran for three
days and in 1987 for four days to accommodate the increasing numbers of dogs and
spectators.
1991 saw the Crufts Centenary Show being held at the Birmingham National Exhibition
Centre, this being the first time the show had moved from London.
2000 will be the tenth year that the show has been staged at the NEC.
