Royal Kennel Club
The Royal Kennel Club Culture & Heritage Library, Photograph and Art Collections constitute a nationally significant sporting heritage resource devoted to canine competition and performance. Our collections document the history, development and governance of organised dog sports in the UK, including conformation dog shows, field trials, working trials, competitive obedience and agility.
The Royal Kennel Club is the national governing body for these sports. We license more than 5,000 competition events annually and are the owners and promoters of Crufts, the world’s largest and most prestigious dog show. As such, our collections provide authoritative primary source material on the evolution of regulated canine sport from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Holdings include Crufts catalogues and championship dog show catalogues dating from 1860 onwards, many of which are annotated and record complete results. We also hold catalogues and records for field trials, working trials and obedience competitions. Complementary material includes scrapbooks, notebooks, pedigrees, photographs, fine art and ephemera, all of which illustrate the sporting context, competitors, officials and venues associated with canine sport.
Together, these collections offer a unique insight into the social, cultural and sporting history of dogs and the people who train, compete with and judge them. The library and collections are open by appointment to researchers, historians and members of the public with an interest in sporting heritage and canine competition.
