History of The English Goat

In so doing, the boy has disturbed three goats, a nanny and her twin kids, and these are shown from the semi-rear in flight.  Landseer was an intimate friend of the Russell’s (the family name of the Dukes of Bedford), and he completed the painting on a visit to Scotland where, one may infer, he stayed at Glenshie, the shooting place of the Duke of Bedford.

The nanny has a short, deep and delicate head, the facial profile being concave and muzzle fine.  The ears are large, flat and wide, held outwards, and slightly upwards, and there is a small, almost brush like beard under her chin.  The horns (as seen from the rear) are long, flat at the base and growing backwards and slightly upwards, the ends twisting horizontally outwards.

She is a sturdily built goat, with a deep, square body and well-rounded belly of good capacity.  Leg length is indeterminate.

The colouring, including the legs, is a mid-, almost light reddish brown with a large white perineum patch and white udder and underparts.  Possibly, there is white on the face.  A black neck and dorsal stripe runs from the back of her head to the black tail.  This goat is short haired, the coat being close but dense, without any longer hair on the back, thighs or underparts.

The udder is well rounded and of moderate size.

One of the kids is of a similar mid-brown colouring to that of the nanny, with a black neck and dorsal stripe but a smaller perineum patch, brown rather than white underparts and (apparently) black legs.

The nearer kid appears to be grey pied, being white with a black muzzle and ears, dark patching forelegs and grey patching on the shoulder and side.

Both kids have long, pricked ears and neither has discernible horn buds.

The importance of this picture is that it shows a mature goat of English type prior to the improvement that took place during the second half of the 19th Century, for according to Holmes Pegler (the Book of the Goat, 3rd Edition, 1886), the English Milch goat of the 1870’s was the product of selective breeding, the point being made that the bred had “very much improved of late in the hands of a few fanciers who, by careful choice of stock, have produced a strain that may be relied upon to breed true to type.”  This raises the question as to whether the original English goat was a coarse, nondescript strain of no fixed type prior to the mid 19th Century; had the selection redefined the head, for instance?  And was the breed originally short, medium or long-haired, selection for a milking strain favouring short hair as the practical ideal?

Landseer’s painting offers evidence of the appearance of the English goat prior to the attentions of “a few fanciers”, and the nanny depicted is essentially of the “improved type” as photographed and illustrated between forty and seventy years later.  The build, conformation, coat type, horn form and characteristic delicate, milch head were already fixed.  The udder, however, although larger than in an unimproved or dual-purpose strain, is a little smaller than that of the improved English goat of the 1870’s.  Improvement probably concentrated on milk yield therefore, and as it would appear that a link exists between certain colour genes and factors for low butterfats and a shapely or unshapely udder, it is just possible that selection for milking qualities unwittingly favoured goats in the brown-grey colour range with an associated dorsal stripe, the prevalent colour of the improved strain.

Colour notwithstanding, and there was still a great deal of variation, individuals ranging from black to white and including pieds, in the early 20th Century, it is of interest that the English goat was an easily recognisable and distinct milch breed almost two hundred years ago.

The “First Leap” may be viewed at the Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall, London, EC2.  The painting is in the collection of the City of London. 

As written by A R Werner for the English Goat Breeders Association

Page Updated 31/05/2025