100 Years - 2024 was The Club's Centenary Year.
History
The club was founded in 1924 to promote the yellow labrador retriever at a time when yellows were very much the minority colour. Several breeders of the time got together and formed the Golden (or Yellow) Labrador Club to support the colour and the Club was registered formally with the Kennel Club in October 1925. Among its principal objectives, the Club set out to encourage the breeding of pure yellow labrador retrievers; to conserve the best type of working dog; to encourage Field Trials; and to ensure having qualified judges at shows.
A century on, the Yellow Labrador Club’s objectives remain much the same. At the time of registration in 1925, the Club had just 46 members and just over £46 in assets! By 1931, membership had grown to 72 and reached 200 in 1968, doubling to some 400 by the 75th anniversary of the Club celebrated in January,1999 and recognised with a letter from Queen Elizabeth II to the then Club President, Mrs Gwen Broadley (Sandylands). At its centenary in 2024, club membership still exceeds 400, having reached a peak of 463 in 2016 and 2017. In the latest recorded full year, 2023, working members comprised some 276 of the 412 total with 98 show-only and a further 38 involved on both the working and show sides of the Club.
Although many Field Trials were held by the Club in the years after its formation the YLC, alone among the various Labrador clubs, was not permitted by the Kennel Club to run a Championship Show due to the colour restriction preventing the award of Challenge Certificates. An Open Show was proposed instead by Mr H.I.P. Taylor (Whatstandwell) and this took place in September 1953 at Derby with 59 yellow labradors being judged by Lady Hill-Wood with Dual Ch. Knaith Banjo winning Best in Show. Further Open Shows were then held at Windsor, Grantham and Oxford.
Some 50 years after its formation, the YLC had enjoyed enormous success in its original objectives with yellow labradors becoming the most popular colour in the ring during the 1960s. Yet it remained unique among Labrador Clubs in still not having its own Championship Show. At a meeting in 1974, Mr Harold Clayton reported that the Kennel Club had a spare set of Challenge Certificates available for Labradors. After discussion, it was agreed that the CCs should be applied for and were duly granted by the KC. The Show was eventually held in 1975, open to all Labrador colours, with the black Labrador Ch. Sandylands Newinn Columbus winning Best in Show.
YLC Field Trials remain open to yellow labradors only. However, where black labradors once totally dominated in open Field Trials elsewhere, yellows have also been very successful in more recent years. In 2018, YLC secretary Sussie Wiles and her daughter Bonnie discovered through old YLC records links between the first Chairman of the YLC, Major C R E Radclyffe and the Foxdenton Estate and the launch by his grandson, Nick Radclyffe of a fruit gin company in 2008/9. YLC members enjoyed a tasting session after the 2018 AGM, choosing ‘plum’ as their favourite. Foxdenton Plum gin is now presented as a gift to the YLC’s judges, landowners and gamekeepers at trials and shows.
The year 2020 proved to be a very difficult year for the YLC as the Covid-19 catastrophe spread world-wide. The YLC was only able to hold one Field Trial and no shows were possible at all. All YLC committee meetings and the AGM were conducted on-line that year via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Remarkably, the resilience of the Club and the commitment of its members enabled 2021 to be a much better year with a full programme of Club events, albeit with necessary Covid restrictions in place.
The year 2024, of course, marks the centenary of the Yellow Labrador Club. A Centenary Open Show was held in May at Forest Oak Farm, Lydney with a Centenary Championship Show held at the same venue the next day with a special anniversary cake. A celebratory Centenary Garden Party was held on Sunday 15th September 2024 at Wellfield House, Orgreave, by kind invitation of Judy and Michael Neachell.
The years since 1924 have seen the YLC go from strength to strength, fortunate in being guided by so many legends in Labradors from the moment Mrs Arthur Wormald refused to be excluded from a show in 1924 on the basis of her dog’s colour; “This is a yellow Labrador and I am staying put” Today, the YLC – in common with so many other dog clubs – faces pressures from the cost of living crisis and years of austerity. It faces the future, however, with optimism and the wonderful support of its dedicated and enthusiastic members. Help us build even firmer foundations for the YLC’s next century.
**This version of the YLC’s history draws heavily upon Richard Edwards excellent ‘History of the Yellow Labrador Club’ published in the YLC’s ‘The Yellow Years’ in 1999, supplemented by additional material drawn from the annual YLC Reviews 1993 – 2021**.