Length: 52cm (20.5in)
Leather collar with brass buckle, loop and circular name tag, inscribed ‘HM The King Sandringham', brass nameplate polished out. Tag diameter: 2.5cm
Provenance: William Brunsdon, Sandringham kennelman (1877-1927).
The present dog collar is of the same distinct design and style as the collar worn by George V’s favourite Cairn Bob, as illustrated on page 89 of Sophie Gordon’s ‘Noble Hounds and Dear Companions - The Royal Photograph Collection’, published 2007.
William Brunsdon (1852-1934) was born on Lord Carnavon’s Highclere Castle estate in Hampshire and entered royal service in his early twenties shortly after the Sandringham estate became the Norfolk home of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). The extensive Sandringham kennels were built in 1879 and housed innumerable royal dogs, that after 1903 included 70 transferred from Windsor that had belonged to Queen Victoria.
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Brunsdon’s appointment as kennelman more or less coincided with the founding of the Kennel Club in 1878, of which the Prince was patron, having first visited dog shows from as early as 1864. Brunsdon did not disappoint in becoming an expert in the management of both the Prince and Princess’s favourite breeds which included Harriers, Bassets, setters, Pointers, Bulldogs, Wolfhounds, Dachshunds, Samoyeds, Fox Terriers, Pugs, Japanese Spaniels, Deerhounds, Collies, St. Bernards, Keeshonds, retrievers, spaniels and the Borzoi. Many of these were judiciously shown by Brunsdon with the expected success.
At the passing of King Edward in 1910, George V continued the dog loving royal tradition, and kept a stud of black labradors for use as gun dogs as well as various types of spaniel which he showed under the prefix of Wolferton after the Sandringham station during Queen Alexandra’s lifetime, yet his inseparable companion in his own latter years was the Cairn Bob. George V’s gun dogs were farmed out to gamekeepers unlike the pets in Brunsdon’s charge, and were unlikely to have worn collars. Brunsdon retired in 1927 and continued to reside with sight of the kennels. George V and Queen Mary frequently visited him in his old age, as did their children from a young age. Fortunately perhaps, Brunsdon expired before the King in 1934 and was thus spared the radical changes Edward VIII wrought up the Sandringham estate - notably the closure of the Sandringham Kennels in 1936.