Charles Cruft’s favourite breed originated in St John’s Wood

Charles Cruft, who founded the eponymous dog show in 1886, was a great fan of St Bernard’s dogs. The breed was created by John Cumming Macdona, a clergyman in Manchester who bought the dogs from the Alps and reimagined them as those kept by monks at the hospice for rescue work on the St Bernard Pass in Switzerland. However, a new book by University of Manchester historian Michael Worboys shows that Macdona’s St Bernard looked nothing like the dogs at the hospice which although brave and clever, were a motley group of no specific type.

Macdona’s version originated in St John’s Wood where the famous Victorian animal painter Edwin Landseer had his studio. In 1820, he painted a rescue scene of two Alpine Mastiffs, inspired by stories of the exploits of the monks’ most famous dog – Barry.

After Barry died, he was preserved and can still be seen in the Natural History Museum in Bern. After visitors complained that he looked ‘wrong’, not having the heavy coat, large head, or thick mane that became its characteristics due to cross breeding, the Museum remodelled Barry to be taller, gave him a nobler look, and a barrel of brandy was hung around his neck, but he still bears little resemblance to the St Bernard at today’s Crufts.