Where do Yorkshire terriers come from? The breed's origin story

Part 1

How Yorkshire mill workers created a working ratter

Picture the setting: the mid-1800s Industrial Revolution changed how textiles were made. Weavers from Scotland moved south in search of mill work, and they brought their small terriers with them. Local dogs and the newly arrived Scottish terriers were crossed together, mixing several terrier types rather than starting from one clean breed. Your dog's stocky little ancestors earned their keep as ratters, working in the mills where their owners were employed and in the cramped housing where the families slept. They also went down into mines to help control rats there.

Part 2

The dogs behind the breed: early terrier ancestors

Nobody kept careful breeding records at the time, so you won't find one clear family tree for these dogs. The likely ancestors include the Waterside Terrier, sometimes called the Otter Terrier, the Old English Terrier, the Skye Terrier, and the Clydesdale and Paisley Terriers. Some accounts also describe a Black-and-Tan Terrier crossed with the Paisley and Clydesdale Terriers. Two early dogs, a male named Old Crab and a female named Kitty, are named among the earliest recorded ancestors, along with a third female whose name was never recorded. Because the mill workers who created these dogs left little written detail, sources describe the mix with words like likely and probably rather than certainty.

Part 3

Huddersfield Ben and the shaping of the modern look

One dog looms over this story: Huddersfield Ben, born in 1865 in the town that gave him his name. Ben weighed about 11 pounds, heavier than today's Yorkies, but he consistently sired puppies under 7 pounds. He won 74 prizes in the show ring and also competed in rat-baiting contests, a link back to his ancestors' working past. Ben was killed by a carriage at the age of 6, but his descendants make up the foundation stock of nearly every Yorkshire terrier alive today.

As breeders bred toward Ben's type, the long, silky coat became a valued feature of the breed. The Yorkshire terrier name itself only came into use once the dogs had already become popular show entries; before that they were shown as the Broken Haired Scotch Terrier or Toy Terrier.

Part 4

From working dog to Victorian lap dog

During the Victorian era, your dog's ancestors became a favorite lap dog of Victorian ladies. The Kennel Club Stud Book first listed the dogs in 1874. The Kennel Club recognised the Yorkshire terrier as its own breed in 1886. The first Yorkshire terrier breed club formed in 1898.

Part 5

How the Yorkshire terrier reached America and beyond

The breed crossed the Atlantic in 1872, and the American Kennel Club registered its first Yorkshire terrier in 1885. As Americans took up Victorian customs, they took to the Yorkshire terrier as well. Popularity dipped in the 1940s, then a Yorkie named Smoky, a war dog found in a foxhole in the New Guinea jungle during World War II, helped revive interest in the breed. By 2012 and 2013 the Yorkshire terrier ranked as the sixth most popular purebred in the United States, though it has since fallen to 11th of 202 breeds in 2024.

Part 6

What the breed's history explains about Yorkies today

Huddersfield Ben, through his many offspring, helped set the type for today's Yorkshire terrier. Today's breed standard calls for a weight of no more than 7 pounds, with a coat that is tan on the head and dark steel-grey on the body. The feisty terrier temperament you may see in your own dog echoes the ratting work its ancestors did in mills and mines. The name Yorkshire terrier refers to the county in England where the breed was developed.