Wet Your Whistle
At some stage in our lives, we will have become familiar with the humble whistle, if not from our school days maybe on some other occasion. Whistles have been around since early humans first carved out a gourd and found they could make sound with it. One characteristic of a whistle is that it creates a pure, or nearly pure, tone.
Whistles made of bone or wood have been used for thousands of years. In prehistoric Egypt, small shells were used as whistles. The ancient Greeks used whistles to keep the stroke of galley slaves. Archaeologists have found a terracotta whistle at the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Assos. The English used whistles during the Crusades to signal orders to archers.
Over the years, whistles have been made from a variety of materials, from reeds and wood to bone, ivory, horn, Britannia metal, silver and occasionally gold. Probably only from the 18th Century have they been made in porcelain and pottery. Whistles to summon and control dogs must date back to the first time hunters for food used dogs.
Horn whistles were used by carriage drivers, railway conductors since the 1840s, mailmen of the postal service as early as 1850, to referee football matches since the late 1870s and by the police since the 1840s. During World War I, officers of the British Army and the United States Army used whistles to communicate with troops, command charges and warn when artillery pieces were going to fire.
Since the 18th Century, whistles to summon and control dogs in the sporting field, both hunting and shooting, have been in constant use. Perhaps porcelain went with the office of Master of Hounds, while the huntsman and whipper-in made do with wood or bone. Whistles embellished with dogs’ heads, or in a few cases in the form of a dog, were at their pinnacle of popularity during the 19th Century and the earlier part of the 20th Century.
Virtually all whistles used in the sporting field would have a ring attached so they could be worn around the neck attached to a lanyard. The three metal whistles from the 19th Century all show the influence of hunting and shooting in their design. Beautifully modelled and cast, sadly in most cases we do not know identity of the modeller. Whistles of this type appeared in gun, rifle and sporting goods catalogs of American manufacturers and distributors as early as 1872, while in England whistles first appeared in James Dixon & Sons of Sheffield catalogs in 1883.
The yellow-gold whistle is exceptional and would probably have been a special commission. The shape and the intense expression of the dog’s head shows Pointer influence in design. It is finely modelled and cast with a collar separating the head from the mouthpiece and with the ring attached to the top of the dog’s head.
The silver whistle with the longer mouthpiece has the ring attached below the dog’s chin. The head and mouthpiece are separated by a simple band, and the modelling of the head shows Setter influence by the shape of the head and muzzle and the proportions of both. The head and mouthpiece of the second silver whistle are separated by a triple-decorated band with the lanyard ring attached to the dog’s mouth. The shape of the head is reminiscent of the head of a hound from the Belvoir or some other great pack.
While those who shot game would have been most likely to have had a gold or silver whistle to control their dogs, the beaters who put up the game and the pickers-up who collected the shot game may well have had a whistle carved in bone, like the 19th-Century one with the lanyard attached directly to the dog’s mouth.
The whistle with the shorter mouthpiece and the more rounded head set with ceramic eyes and carved in ivory would probably have been carried in the pocket. It is of a design possibly used by carriage drivers, railway conductors and mailmen from the middle years of the 19th Century. Allegedly this one was once owned by Florence Nightingale, who was born in Florence, Italy, in 1820. She became the great social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing.
“The Spanish Pointer” by George Stubbs is one of the best known of all the pictures of dogs ever painted. It is thought to have been completed in the years 1766 to 1768 of a dog owned by Thomas Bradford. He may have commissioned two versions, as one was known to be with the Coote family of West Park, Hampshire, and a second in the Bavarian Royal Collection in the 1790s. It has been much copied down the years by artists and engravers alike. The first engraving was published in 1868 by Bradford, a printseller in Fleet Street, London, from an engraving by William Woollett. Wood engraver Thomas Bewick copied it in reverse, and it was with a number of other dogs and hounds he illustrated in his “General History of Quadrupeds.” If nothing else, this publication would have introduced it to a wide audience.
The commercial successes of the prints then led to further lives for the picture in other mediums. The Chelsea factory manufactured a porcelain model on a decorative rock rather than against the original pastoral background of Stubbs’ picture, but it is undoubtedly the same dog. It is thought to have been modelled by William Coffee circa 1785 to 1795. It was the head of this model that was copied for the whistles, all made by various factories over the years. The pair is among the earliest and was made circa 1825 to 1835 in the Staffordshire Potteries, while the single whistle (below), one of the latest, was made by Royal Worcester circa 1930.
