THE BORDER COLLIE MUSEUM

"Queen Victoria at Osborne" painted by Sir Edwin Landseer
shows Queen Victoria, seated on a horse held by John Brown, a Highland gillie
who provided companionship to the queen after the death of her husband, Prince Albert.
On the bench at left are two of the queen's daughters, Princess Helena and Princess Louise.
There are three dogs in the painting, and the one behind Brown is a collie.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S COLLIES

Above, is Queen Victoria's collie, Sharp (from a painting), and at left is a photograph of the queen with Sharp. In the painting he looks more like a lab than a collie, but in the photo, despite how dark it is and how little of Sharp you can see, he definitely looks more like an old fashioned collie or smooth-coated Border Collie-type.

We tend to think of Queen Victoria as associated with show collies, but in her day the show collie was only beginning to be developed from the old working collie types, and it was this type that Queen Victoria admired. It makes sense that she would have seen these dogs working while at Balmoral in Scotland. It was the Royal Family's patronage of collies that gave them their popularity and led to their being sought out by the show cult and ultimately developed into the show or Rough Collie we know today.

Right, another photo of Queen Victoria and Sharp.

Left, a memorial to "Sharp, the favorite and faithful Collie of Queen Victoria from 1866 to 1879. died now 1879 aged 15 years" at Windsor.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S SHARP
by David Probert

[This short article first appeared in the Fall 1995 issue of The Shepherd's Dogge, a magazine published by the editor of these pages from March 1988 through December 2002. David Probert lives in Barrow-In-Furness, Cumbria, England, with his Border Collie. He is a writer and self-taught artist who contributed regularly to The Shepherd's Dogge.--ed.]

Queen Victoria owned many dogs in her lifetime, but her favorite and constant companion was Sharp, a smooth-coated collie of the type we call Border Collie today.

Sharp, born in 1854, was named after a government minister who was in favour with Victoria at the time. When the Queen visited her holiday home, Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, Sharp, devoted to his mistress was a familiar sight at her side.

In old age, the Queen derived great consolation from the presence about her of all manner of mementoes of the past, including pictures and sculptures of her favourite animals. A statuette of Sharp in silver gilt dominated her dining table.

Sharp lived for 15 years. A statue of him stands over his grave in Windsor Home Park, Berkshire, England.

Two newpaper clippings of Princess Alexandra, who was Queen Victoria's daughter-in-law, married to Edward, Prince of Wales. Edward became king upon Queen Victoria's death, and Princess Alexandra became Queen Alexandra. The caption reads "Queen Alexandra certainly had 'a way with dogs'. She is pictured here...on the Royal Yacht, 'Osborne', with three of her dogs." Two of them, the one behind her and the one beside her on her left, appear to be collies of the Border Collie-type. The other is a small dog that looks like a pug. It is clear that collies were definitely a favored breed with the Victorian Royals.

Sharp was not Queen Victoria's only collie. In August 1891, the Pall Mall Gazette, a London newspaper, mentioned "'Shep' the Queen's collie, is very ill-tempered to everyone but the Queen, whose exact position he knows, and recognizes as fully as you and I would do."

At left is another of Queen Victoria's collies, Noble.

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