THE CANINE COLLECTORS

Just like us, the Victorians were not immune to the persuasive power of a pair of beseeching canine eyes, but they set about cashing in on it — quite literally!

For nearly one hundred years dogs all around the country collected for charities — this is their story.

For nearly a hundred years, dogs all around the country collected for charities; many became celebrities during the course of their duties, with their likenesses appearing on postcards and their exploits and antics chronicled in the national and regional press.

One of the earliest recorded canine collectors was a small dog owned by a Mr Edwards, who wanted to help victims of the Lancashire cotton famine. He soon raised 20 shillings and was interviewed for a children’s magazine.

Realising that dogs were far more effective at persuading the public to part with their pennies than humans, the idea rapidly spread.

Some collecting dogs were privately owned; trained to wear a sign and a money box they could be rented by anyone — a kind of early version of the modern day GoFundMe. But the majority were owned by hospital and railway charities, becoming a common and popular sight.

DOGNAPPED

Many of the best known and best loved dogs collected at railway stations for the benefit of employees: the railways of the latter part of the 19th century were dangerous places to work, killing and injuring thousands, and creating a need for charitable organisations to care for widows and orphans and those left crippled by accidents.

By 1900 most of the major railway stations had their own collecting dogs, some accompanied by a human, but many roaming free and working on their own initiative. Probably the most famous of these was London Jack, a retriever owned by railwayman Mr Wickins, and a familiar sight to rail passengers at Waterloo. As well as parading along the platforms,

he would jump into the carriages, barking and shaking his collecting box to attract the attention of anyone slow to put a hand in their pocket. His fame grew even greater when in August 1899 he was dognapped, making national headlines. Sightings were reported from all over Britain, and a couple of dogs were even sent to Waterloo, but all were false leads. Just as hope was fading, a tip-off led to his recovery, along with 60 other dogs of all shapes and sizes being held by a gang. He was joyfully reunited with Mr Wickins, but unfortunately had lost his confidence as a collecting dog, so was rehomed with an old railwayman on the Isle of Wight.

he became a favourite of Queen Victoria, bowing to her each time she slipped a gold sovereign into it.

Not all pilferers were human though; there are several accounts of canny canines who learned how to take coins in their mouths and would then take them to the nearest bakery and exchange them for a bun or cake!

WELL TRAVELLED

Many of the railway canine collectors would take the occasional trip on a train. London Jack I would sometimes visit Vauxhall, although he once jumped on an express by mistake and ended up in Bournemouth. In Slough, Station Jim frequently took day trips to Leamington or London, where the guards would then solicitously pop him back on the next train home.

The most widely travelled of them all was probably Help. With railway guard John Climpson, the collie would regularly journey on the London to Brighton train, wearing a silver collar with a medallion inscribed: ‘I am Help, the railway dog of England, and travelling agent for the orphans of railway men who are killed on duty. My office is at 306, City Road, London, where subscriptions will be thankfully received and duly acknowledged’. Such was his success that he began travelling further afield in the company of other railway guards, and by the time he retired in 1890, he had worked on every railway line in the country and visited every principal town in

England and Wales.

LAST OF THE COLLECTING DOGS

During their lifetimes these dogs raised many thousands of pounds, and were held in affection by the locals who knew them. But during the mid-1900s they fell from favour with officialdom if not the public, and were gradually phased out. An Airedale Terrier called Laddie, who worked at Waterloo until 1956, is thought to have been the last. But the names and stories of the collecting dogs

— the Nells, Spots, and Bobs as well as their more famous counterparts — live on. Their tales are an inextricable part of the history of railways, hospitals, animal welfare, and all the other charities they tirelessly collected for. They may be gone, but will never be forgotten.