The legacy Charles Cruft and Crufts

ACKNOWLEDGED as the ‘prince of showmen’ by the late-19th-century world of dog fanciers and, later, as ‘the Napoleon of dog shows’, Charles Cruft (1852–1938) had a phenomenal capacity for hard graft and, importantly, a mind for marketing—he understood consumer behaviour and he knew how to weaponise ‘the hype’.

- Charles Cruft and Crufts

Cruft eschewed the family jewellery business in 1876 to work for James Spratt, who had devised a way of turning Navy-surplus ships’ biscuits into ‘dog cakes’—a patent poised to capitalise on the burgeoning pet-food market. Spratt would become a household name and Cruft, a travelling salesman, would visit the kennels of country estates, schmoozing the wealthy and influential while simultaneously peddling the dog food. It was the Duchess of Newcastle who first suggested: ‘Why not try your hand at organising a national terrier show?’