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©Dukeries (Notts) Gundog Club 2022                       All Rights Reserved

Kennel Club ID 118

“To promote the breeding of good gundogs”

Patron: Mrs B Jayne Mawer

History Of the Club.

The Club was formed with the object of promoting the breeding of good gundogs and to hold training sessions, field trials and shows. This is still the basis for our rules.

In the 1950/60 era, gundogs in the areas were mainly produced for working on the local estates where at that time a shoot would have a full array of pointers, setters, retrievers, spaniels and possibly some H.P.R breeds.

With the exception of the three local major agricultural shows, although all the local towns and cities had an organisation running dog shows, apart from Labradors, Irish Setters and Cocker Spaniels showing of gundogs was generally restricted to variety classes.

Harry Dunn had noticed that this was not the case in Yorkshire where working tests and shows for gundogs were common place and soon found a level of interest in the formation of a club, at the same time realising that more gundog breeds than originally thought of would be interested.

The name Dukeries was already in use to describe the area of North Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, North Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire area which contained the estates of the five Dukes. Notts was included in the title as at that time the Kennel Club expected dog shows to be held in the declared area of registration which for Dukeries Gundog Club was considered to around the Worksop area.

The first informal meetings were held in the early 1970's and a committee and officers of the proposed club were elected at a meeting in December 1972 with Harry Dunn as chairman and Rosemary Davies as secretary.

The Club continued to hold rallies and social events and at the same time made enquiries with regard to Kennel Club registration. As soon as information was received an application was made and in March 1975 supported by Yorkshire Gundog, was confirmed by the Kennel Club and a licence issued to allow the first show to be held in August 1975 scheduling ten gundog breeds.

The rapid rise in all the activities of the Club did give rise for it to be necessary to have a separate show and working sub-committee and eventually for them, with the exception of at the A.G.M. or if a special meeting was necessary to hold meetings separately.

The shows rapidly gained strength and at the same time the club maintained an active interest in the affairs of the National Gundog Association.

In 1986 we were asked to assist in the running of the National Gundog Association Championship Show which was to be held at the Newark Showground and we have continued to host national Gundog at approximately ten year intervals.

The working section also progressed with equal success running training classes, working tests and Field Trials for all gundog breeds. Licensing is always required to hold Field Trials. The title F/T Champion is obtained by wins in Open stakes, depending on the status of the Open Stake, i.e. KC Champion stake, two or one day stakes, for all the sub groups.

The Dukeries ran their first Field Trial in 1978 for Setters and Pointers, in 1980 we held our first Open stake. The first Open Stake for Retrievers was held in 1991. We were then licensed to hold an Open stake for Spaniels in 1992. The Dukeries is one of the few clubs to hold Field Trials for all the sub groups. We are also licensed to hold Cocker Spaniel trials.

On the Show side many seminars were held, at that time called “teach ins”  and were attended by many well known gundog people, the talks and demonstrations covered breeding, construction, movement and exhibiting gundogs.

These were generally followed with many of the participants by a cheese and wine party remaining for an exchange of views.

Each Christmas the club would hold a dinner dance usually at the Masonic hall in Worksop. This was always well attended with other clubs’  reserving tickets well in advance. We would always have a guest speaker but after the dinner and after dinner speech the evening was light hearted with various competitions. The wide appeal of this event was reflected in the fact that a wooden spoon was presented to the person that had travelled the greatest distance to attend.

However, as we went into the 1990’s the support of this type of event disappeared, the working section do still have regular social functions.

The show side of the club applied for Championship status several times but to no avail and recent history indicates that the Kennel Club is reluctant to give this to a single organisation.

Harry Dunn our late Chairman and founder of the club was one of the great dog men of his day.He had run ringcraft classes at Langold Lake and helped many of  our local champions to attain their titles, through his expertise of handling and ringcraft.

To him we owe our gratitude for the status the Dukeries (Notts) Gundog Club has today.