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In July 1897 Geoffrey Wellock, a farmer of Embsay,^[1] was fined 5 shillings because his dog was outdoors without a muzzle. ^[2] This was just one of many similar cases that appeared before Skipton Petty Sessions over many decades.

For the Victorians, debates over the role of the state and local government, and the potential conflict with personal liberties, were raised through several issues – including vaccination, welfare of the poor, factory reform, and public health. One other issue – that of the regulation of pet ownership – had the added problem of the deeply emotional aspects associated with companion animals. While dog-lovers argued that muzzling was cruel and ineffective in preventing the spread of rabies, veterinarians and the Kennel Club increasingly adopted and encouraged the official view that muzzling was necessary for the greater good.

Dog muzzling was the subject of heated and long-running debate throughout mid to late Victorian England. As pet ownership had increased hugely throughout the 19th Century, so had the fear of rabies. Working people were blamed for encouraging an increasing number of stray, neglected dogs, and also accused of breeding ferocious dogs for dog-fighting, which were then allowed to roam freely. In the absence of modern forensic science, it was also highly probable that the threat of rabies was exaggerated due to misdiagnosis of the cause of death in human patients suffering from delirium, inflammation of the brain, or similar illnesses.

It is important to understand the context of the debate over muzzling dogs, which was set against a rapidly growing interest in animal welfare, pet ownership, pedigree dog-breeding, and associated leisure activities. Throughout the Victorian period pet ownership increased greatly, along with an industry creating fancy breeds, dog shows, and a growing market in products for pets (dog food, soap, medications, kennels, etc.). It is difficult to calculate how many pet dogs there were, since although dogs were supposed by law to be licensed, contemporary official accounts estimated that probably half to three-quarters of dog-owners evaded the tax, especially when the cost of the licence rose from 5s to 7/6d.^[3]

The greatest increase in dog ownership seems to have occurred amongst the professional and commercial middle classes, who sought to reflect their social status through expensive pedigree dogs. Amongst the working classes, greyhounds, whippets and terriers were popular for ratting and rabbiting, but here too, the ‘fancy’ breeds were gaining in popularity alongside increased interest in joining clubs and societies, engaging in competitive sports, and participating in prize-winning exhibitions (such as agricultural shows and dog shows), all of which demanded a considerable investment of time, money and effort. The emerging world of dog shows rapidly spread out from the cities into country towns and villages, where the working classes enthusiastically joined in. Dogs were being bred and kept mainly for field sports (hunting, game shooting, racing, dog-fighting), and as companion animals. The Kennel Club, aware that many middle-class dog-owners were anxious to display their social aspirations by adopting aristocratic pursuits such as hunting, supported the campaign to restrict state interference in dog ownership. In 1884 their magazine estimated that a quarter of a million people used dogs to hunt or retrieve game.

While blood sports were expanding out from the upper into the middle classes, so was the popularity of pampered lap dogs. By the 1890s, ‘ladies’ dogs’ were being imported as novelties from the Far East, and fashionable accessories – such as coats for dogs, in different styles for different times of the day – were increasingly in demand.

Unfortunately, the rise in dog numbers included a steep increase in the number of uncontrolled dogs, especially in the North where it was common practice for poorer owners to allow dogs to freely roam the streets to fend for themselves, leading to indiscriminate breeding and fighting, and sometimes to the spread of rabies.^[4]  The more that pedigree dogs were pampered and treated as family members, the more the tendency to regard stray mongrels or ‘curs’ as dangerous public nuisances to be eradicated. For example, in the early 19th Century the Manchester city police had employed a man with a hatchet to cut down strays. After a great deal of public protest, the officer was given a gun to shoot them – which in turn had to be abandoned due to passers-by being accidentally caught in the line of fire. By 1843, the Manchester dog catchers were using prussic acid – a few drops being placed on the stray’s tongue, killing them in seconds. In this way, nearly 700 were destroyed between May and October 1843 during the annual dog rounding-up season; similar numbers being killed in successive years. ^[5] 

Pressure grew for national legislation to protect people from the threat of dog bites, leading to the Dogs Act of 1871, which gave police the power to seize and destroy dogs considered to be a risk to the public.  In 1877 the number of deaths from rabies in Britain was 82, and by the late 1880s the issue had become a major topic of national debate. By this time, a better scientific understanding of how viruses spread prompted Parliament to consider various alternative solutions. But widespread scepticism about how the disease was spread prevailed, and no effective legislation could be agreed. ^[6]

In the meantime, local authorities dealt with the issue by their own measures. The usual response was to shoot suspect dogs and impose muzzling orders during the summer months. An editorial in the Craven Herald newspaper (10 November 1877) noted:

“For some months past our columns have had occasionally notices of the appearance amongst us of supposed mad dogs, and in our local news last week we recorded the shooting of two of these animals by the Skipton police.”

The newspaper cast doubt on whether all deaths – whether in dogs or humans – which were attributed to rabies were actually caused by the disease. A dog would sometimes be thought rabid when it was merely agitated, or provoked by fear, or a person misdiagnosed when suffering from a disease that looked similar to, but was not actually, rabies. But still, the editor acknowledged that the possibility of rabies had to be considered whenever a dog bit another dog, livestock, or person.

Small market towns like Skipton rarely encountered real cases of rabies, but the fear was very real. In large cities the response to the mere threat of rabies was ruthless. Between September 1879 and September 1880, police in Leeds captured and quarantined 1,567 ‘homeless curs’, of which 1,167 were unclaimed and therefore, after a few weeks, were summarily destroyed. ^[7] Officers were rewarded financially for each capture, a scheme animal welfare campaigners successfully fought to abolish as it led to indiscriminate killing. By 1885, police in Leeds were being issued with hoops on a three-foot rod to catch stray dogs, and special constables employed as dog catchers wore protective thick leather gaiters and gloves. ^[8] 

During the 1880s, however, the medical authorities reached a consensus that rabies was a virus spread by the bites of infected dogs. Thus, muzzling was widely regarded as the most effective solution to the eradication of the dreaded disease, alongside the immediate shooting of any animal suspected of being infected. The practice of muzzling dogs was not new – it had long been common practice for local authorities to require it for limited periods, such as during July and August when it was believed the summer heat caused rabies. Since the 1780s local and national governments had promoted compulsory dog muzzling, especially for mastiffs and bulldogs, but local authorities often extended their own regulations to cover all breeds.

The Rabies Order (1886) reinforced the power of local authorities to impose compulsory muzzling orders, and to seize and destroy strays, even when there were no cases of rabies in their area. This was so unpopular that many local authorities dared not impose such orders, while others strictly imposed muzzling orders, usually for short periods when the risk was thought to be high. The muzzling issue continued to provoke very heated debate. 

In 1886 the ‘Society for the Prevention of Hydrophobia and the Reform of the Dog Laws’ was formed in direct response to the establishment of the ‘The Dog Owners’ Protection Association’, which had itself formed in response to the widely reported incident of a distraught Miss Frances Ravell, who was arrested for pouring water over the head of a police inspector when he ordered her unmuzzled pet to be killed on her doorstep. 

In 1889 Parliament gave the Board of Agriculture the authority to impose the Rabies Order wherever they thought necessary.^[9] Lancashire, Cheshire and the West Riding of Yorkshire were particularly targeted.  Dogs used for upper-class pursuits of hunting and game retrieval were exempted – the price demanded by M.P.s for passing the legislation. The granting of this privilege to the social elite merely fuelled the resentment of the general dog-owning population.  Any dog that barked at strangers, or was too lively, was immediately under suspicion, as was any frightened dog who adopted aggressive behaviour as a form of defence. Thousands of dogs were slaughtered across the country as a result.

In July 1889, Skipton magistrates met to discuss the issue of muzzling in the light of an instruction from the Privy Council to investigate a report that there had recently been 12 cases of rabies in the Craven area. In view of the fact that there were a number of dogs freely roaming the town’s streets, and it was mid-summer, they decided to issue an compulsory muzzling order effective until October 1st. Dog owners were warned they could face a fine of up to 20 shillings plus costs. ^[10] There followed a series of cases at the local petty sessions courts as dog owners breached the order.  

William Nutter, a farmer from Broughton, was summoned to Skipton court for driving a horse and trap while his unmuzzled dog ran along behind. When challenged by a passer-by, Nutter pulled a muzzle from his pocket and defiantly waved it over his head. He was fined five shillings and costs. Frank Inman, a Silsden farmer, summoned the same day, only had to pay half the fine. To explain this disparity, the magistrate sought to clarify the precise terms of the local muzzling order. He declared that a dog could be unmuzzled if it could be shown to be under ‘proper control, within calling distance’. He did not consider Nutter had proper control over the dog. Such fine points of law caused a good deal of confusion over the following years. ^[11]

Although muzzling orders were usually imposed during the summer, the West Riding County Council held a meeting later that same year about the control of diseases in animals. Owing to ‘the prevalence of rabies in the West Riding’ they issued an order, effective from 30 November (1889) to 31 May (1890), for all dogs in the district that are at large and ‘not being under the actual control of some person’ to be muzzled. Police were authorised to seize all stray dogs. ^[12]

A common plea of dog owners brought before the courts, was that the dog had managed to get the muzzle off by itself. This was very possible with the leather muzzles then being used, as they became worn and stretched, or were not fitted properly. “Under the recent order for the muzzling of dogs, issued by the West Riding Council”, Walter Mason, a butcher of Skipton, was summoned before the court after a policeman found his unmuzzled dog wandering 200 yards from Mason’s home. Mason claimed the dog had freed itself of the muzzle and escaped from the backyard. He was fined only one shilling and costs. Thomas Thornton, coal merchant, was also only fined one shilling, since although he did not appear in person, he did write a deeply apologetic letter claiming he would never breach the muzzling order again. ^[13]

Helen Wray, a widow of Addingham, argued before the Skipton Petty Sessions that her dog was roaming the streets unmuzzled because the muzzle had been stolen. The standard fine of five shillings was accordingly halved to 2s 6d. ^[14] 

Animal welfare campaigners argued that not only was muzzling cruel to the dogs (causing discomfort and anxiety, preventing them from drinking or being able to perspire through panting), ^[15] but the seizure and destruction of all stray dogs without collars, or who barked at strangers, or appeared nervous or excitable, made them at risk of summary and unnecessary execution in the streets. In Leeds alone, 429 had been destroyed in December 1893; an daily average of 40 stray dogs were destroyed during 1894; and 811 in January 1895. ^[16]

In January 1895 a mongrel dog was seen at Embsay, near Skipton. Although she was wearing a muzzle, it was unsecured, and hanging down from her face. She bit six dogs and was chased through Skipton by a group of young men. They did not catch up with her until she reached Sutton, where she was shot, having bitten another eleven dogs and a cat on the way. Skipton vet, Mr. Anderton, examined the corpse and confirmed it was infected with rabies. ^[17]

As government pressure intensified, Skipton Petty Sessions courts fined several more local people for unmuzzled dogs – the standard fine being increased to five shillings (when the average weekly wage for a labourer was 17 shillings), and then again to ten shillings. But the number of summonses for unmuzzled dogs continued to increase. In one court session in September 1895 no less than seven dog owners were each fined ten shillings.^[18]

However, the fine was soon cut back to five shillings, although in some circumstances it was reduced even further. In May 1896 William Hoyle, a labourer from Conistone, was fined just 2s 6d, including costs.^[19] Almost a year later Ingham Chadwick, a draper of Skipton, was fined five shillings for allowing his dog to run about Swadford Street without a muzzle or collar.^[20] In the following September four people were fined five shillings each.^[21] A fifth dog owner John Mills, a weaver from Earby, was excused on the grounds the dog may have removed its own muzzle.

In October 1897 the Craven Agricultural Society and Farmers’ Club petitioned the Board of Agriculture to remove the muzzling order imposed over the district, on the grounds that there had been no cases of rabies in the Craven area for a year, and that sheep dogs were needed to herd sheep, sometimes for several miles, which was very difficult when they were muzzled. To the great disappointment of Craven farmers, the Board replied that there had been seven rabies cases confirmed across the West Riding during 1897. They argued that dogs could appear to be healthy for a long period before the symptoms became evident, so a longer period of caution was necessary. Sheep dogs would not be made exempt, due to their large numbers in the district, and as they were particularly prone to contracting rabies due to the distances they travelled. They added that the Board were of the opinion that muzzles did not affect the work of sheep dogs. ^[22]

That same year, the government intervened with local authority policies again, insisting that dog muzzles be made of wire (in a regulation design) instead of leather, as these were more effective, and gave the dogs greater freedom to drink and pant. They were also less easy for dogs to remove by themselves.  

In December 1897 William James Bentham, cattle dealer, failed to appear before the Skipton magistrates, sending in a written apology that stated he was unaware the seasonal muzzling order (which usually covered just the summer months) had still been in force when his dog was found unmuzzled in Hawes the previous October. The magistrates, aware that people had become confused at an order being imposed over the winter season, reduced the fine to 6d (plus 7s 6d costs) instead of the full ten shillings and costs. However, Charles Gothorpe was fined eight shillings and costs.  Mary Ann Walker of Leyburn had her case postponed as she was too ill to attend, and anyway claimed that the unmuzzled dog belonged to her son. ^[23]  

“Good news for the lovers of “doggie,” declared the Leeds Times newspaper on 15 July 1899:

“The absurd regulation which has so long been in force throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire in regard to dog muzzling will ‘probably be withdrawn at an early date.’ Thus say the sapient authorities who have perpetuated this infliction on our four-footed pets. In the city of Hull dogs were never muzzled and rabies is almost unknown. In the West Riding the tiniest animal and the toothless old dog come in the same category as the most savage brute that is never safe without a muzzle. It is this want of consistency that renders the order so very odious.”

The persistent and highly vocal opposition to muzzling is highly symptomatic of tensions within late Victorian society: individual liberty versus increased state intervention; the independence of local authorities against the increasing encroachment of central government; Utilitarianism and principles of relentless material progress pitched against Romantic and Humanitarian ideologies; Class divisions in a period of an expanding franchise, awareness of civil rights, increasing respect for animal rights – alongside improved veterinary medicine.

The disease was officially declared eradicated from Britain by 1903.   

Sources:

British Newspaper Archive Online  (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ ; FindMyPast and British Library)

‘Craven Herald’ newspaper archives (Local Studies Reference Collection, Skipton Library)

John K. Walton – “Mad Dogs and Englishmen: The Conflict over Rabies in Late Victorian England” (Journal of Social History, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Winter, 1979), pp. 219-239)

[1] Geoffrey Wellock (1838-1920), born in Starbotton, came to Embsay as a gardener in the late 1870s, with his wife Mary Jane (née Elsworth, from Skipton; 1838-1916), and 8 children; By 1891 he was farming at Good Intent. He retired to Crow Tree Cottages in Eastby in 1920, and died at his son Jeffrey Lodge Wellock’s farm (Dalehead). 

^[2] Over £20 in terms in terms of today’s purchasing power (National Archives, Currency converter: 1270–2017); Craven Herald newspaper, 23 July, 1897.

[3] Board of Agriculture, 1896; London County Council; Parliamentary Papers (xxxiv, Departmental Committee on the working of the laws relating to dogs, 1897); Official figures stated there were 830,000 licensed dogs in 1867, rising to over 1,300,000 in 1878. Parliamentary Papers (xlix, 1877); Select Committee on Rabies (1887); Parliamentary Papers (1897).

[4] It must be remembered that in this period there was no access to safe neutering or vaccination of dogs. In London alone, over 20,000 stray dogs were seized every year and, unclaimed, were destroyed. Although Battersea Dog’s Home was founded in 1860 it was unable to cope with such a huge problem. 

^{[5] ‘}Leeds Times’ newspaper (13th June, 1846)

[6] Contemporary theories on the causes of rabies included: dogs on heat, frustration at being unable to mate, spontaneous generation of the disease, contact with water, in-breeding, or rabies being naturally dormant in animal blood and stimulated into action by the dog being goaded into a heightened state such as excitement, anger or irritability.

[7] ‘Leeds Times’ (30th October, 1880)

^[8] ‘Leeds Times’ (12th December, 1885)

[9] In 1885, 27 people were recorded as having died of rabies in England, but the accuracy of official figures before the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act of 1886 was questionable, and it is doubtful that more than a handful of people contracted rabies each year. By now the incidents of rabies had fallen from 312 known cases in 1889, to just 38 by 1892. With the relaxation of controls, the number rose to 672 in 1895, although historians question the accuracy of these figures which may have been manipulated to help legislation get through. (Parliamentary Papers,1897)

[10] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (13th July, 1889)

[11] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (24th August, 1889)

[12] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (15th November, 1889)

[13] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (20th December, 1889)

[14] ‘Wharfedale and Airedale Observer’ (13th June, 1890)  

^[15] ‘The Yorkshire Evening Post’ reported in 1898 (3rd March) that the Bishop of Bristol had refused to muzzle his dogs on the grounds it was cruel.

^[16] ‘Leeds Times’ newspaper (9th February, 1895)

^[17] ‘Leeds Times’ newspaper (19th January, 1895)

[18] ‘Leeds Times’ newspaper (14th September, 1895)

[19] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (8th May, 1896)

[20] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (9th April, 1897)

[21] Robert Marston (labourer of Skipton); Percy English (labourer of Skipton); Martha McCaul (Earby); Louisa Gill (Addingham). ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (24th September, 1897)

[22] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (8th October, 1897)

[23] ‘Craven Herald’ newspaper (3^rd December, 1897)

Jane Lunnon – Embsay With Eastby Historical Research Group