(First registered yellow)
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Country of residence: United Kingdom
Registration: KC 55698
THE BIRTH OF BEN OF HYDE
In 1899 a black bitch bred by Lord Wimborne was in whelp to Mr. Radclyffe’s Neptune 1892, also a black dog. The litter was born in 1899 of which one dog and one bitch were yellow. The dog was called Ben and the bitch Juno. Both were bred from and Juno’s stock were all black but Ben’s were yellow and consequently CRE Radclyffe (my grandfather) decided to concentrate on yellow labrador retrievers.
It was Ben of Hyde who was the first yellow labrador registered with the Kennel Club and from whom so many of the yellow labradors of today are descended. Ben was also renowned for being an excellent retriever of fish.
It apparently took two generations before there were no throwbacks to black. My grandfather continued to breed yellow labradors and his sister-in-law Audrey Radclyffe continued to trial yellow labradors until well into the 1980s.
https://gundog-journal.com/training/the-labrador-pioneers/
All our yellow Labradors are descended from Major Radclyffe's Hyde Ben (1899). His sire was Major Radclyffe's "Neptune" and the dam was Lord Wimborne's "Duchess". Both were black. This breeding produced the first yellow Labradors on record. The litter consisted of 2 puppies - both yellow. The bitch, "Juno" produced only black puppies but "Ben" produced yellows. "Hyde Ben" was a dark yellow. A dog termed as a fox red now was at that time called a dark yellow. The dark yellows were a dark golden or butterscotch color sometimes tinged with red. This was the true color of the original yellow Labrador. fter World War II the lighter yellows appeared and soon the dark yellows were seldom seen.
http://foxredlabradorbreeders.com/foxredhistory.htm
“Fox Red Labradors”
History of the shade
Author: Gregg Tonkin, Little River Labradors
"Ben of Hyde" Fox Red Labrador Retriever
In the early years of the breed development, fox red or dark yellow was the original yellow shade of the Labrador Retriever. The original yellows were in fact called Golden until the British Kennel Club came to register them. They argued that “gold” was not a colour, so yellow they became. One has to only look at the first yellow Labrador ever recorded, Ben of Hyde in 1899 sired by Major Radclyffe’s “Neptune” out of Lord Wimborne’s “Duchess” both blacks to see this original shade. These early Labradors were either dark golden or butterscotch tinged with red. Until and even to some point after World War 11, dark yellow was the norm.
http://blueberryhilllabradors.com/history-of-the-fox-red-labrador/
Fox red is not a distinct color of the Labrador, it is just a particular shade of yellow. In the early development of the breed, Fox-red or dark yellow was the Labrador Retriever’s original yellow color. The first yellow Labradors were in fact called golden, until the British Kennel Club made them official as yellow. The motivation was that “gold is not a color”, and so they have been called yellow. Just look at the first recorded yellow Labrador, Ben of Hyde (1899, male) born of Radclyffe’s Neptune (1892, black) x Tapper’s Duchess (<1890, black, unregistered, for which we have no pedigree), to see how the hue yellow was originally. These early Labradors were of a hue that approached dark gold or cream toffee with a red overtone.
https://foxredlabrador.it/en/history-of-the-foxred/ |
