What's That To Do With the Price of Wool?

In Ireland and the UK, the wool market has collapsed to the point that it often makes more sense to burn sheared wool than to transport it.

Sheep have to be shorn whether the wool is used or not. This is 788 pounds of blackface wool (a meat breed of sheep and the most common in the UK) for less than $20.

What’s the price of wool have to do with the history of mounted hunts, bird shoots, and terrier work?

More than you might think!

Britain’s sheep economy boomed in the late 18th and early 19th Century and working collies became a lynchpin of rural economic life.

The sheep economy, however, proved less stable than hoped. Busts in the wool business followed cheap imports of cotton and wool from Australia, America, and Europe.

In a collapsing wool economy, many marginal ventures found they needed other sources of income. One that presented itself was the stocking of pheasant, grouse and partridge for the new sport of bird shooting.

The blunderbuss, which had appeared on the scene in the middle of the late 18th Century, made way for the shotgun by 1850. The great age of Victorian shooting had now begun in earnest, with a new-found appreciation for retrievers, setters and pointers.

In 1859, the first formal dog show was held at Newcastle upon Tyne, sponsored by two shotgun makers, and featuring only Pointers and Setters. John Henry Walsh, the editor of The Field magazine, was one of the judges. He later went on to found the Kennel Club.