History of The English Goat
No one really knows how long the English Goat has been in existence. It was first described and given its name “English” in 1875 by Henry Stephen Holmes Pegler, the first honorary secretary of the British Goat Society. His book “The Book of the Goat” can be easily found through an internet search of the title and describes the English Goat along with all other known breeds in the British Isles at the time.
“The First Leap” by Sir Edwin Landseer (1829)
It has long been assumed that the English Goat was developed throughout Victorian times by breeding our little hairy native goat (now known as the Old English Goat) with various imported breeds that arrived at the UK ports from throughout the Empire. However, written accounts are scarce and the discovery of the goats shown in the picture above puts this theory into question.
All we do know for certain is that English goats existed long before they were officially named in 1875 through this pictorial evidence seen in Sir Edwin Landseer’s “The First Leap”, which was painted in 1829.
Page Updated 20/01/2024
