Manchester Tail Lines
Today's North American Manchester Terriers, both Toy and Standard, can be traced back along tail lines to only a handful of dogs - nine to be exact, 11 if we include the primary ancestors of recent imports. That said, it is important to note that these 11 dogs are not the only primary recorded ancestors of the breed, merely that they are the only individuals to whom today's tail lines are traced. The genetic material of many other primary ancestors is still passed on today through indirect descendants (i.e., female descendants of original males and vice versa) - described as through "the middle" of the pedigree.
It should also be recognized that the tail line founders we discuss (or any original ancestor recorded on a pedigree) are certainly not the first Manchester Terriers to exist, nor can they be said to have "originated" the lines of Manchesters we work within today -- after all, they did have parents themselves. They are, however, the first recorded direct ancestors of today's dogs in the sense that direct lineage to them is traceable along tail lines.
Despite their pivotal role in the breed's ancestry today, each of these dogs had rather inauspicious beginnings -- in fact little record remains of them today. At the time they were single dogs among many Manchester Terriers, individual members of a larger gene pool which laid claim to many more primary ancestors than we will find in modern pedigrees.
The breed was to fall on hard times, however, with the banning in England of blood sports in the mid-1800s and ear cropping in 1897. The First World War would also heavily impact the breed, forcing some long time breeders to discontinue breeding and others to keep fewer dogs than they may have previously. Working in tandem with these outside forces were the breeding choices of contemporary breeders whose selection for desirable traits further limited the available gene pool. Some pinpoint the late 1800s as a turning point for the breed from the perspective of stylization, crediting breeders of that period for refining the breed and cementing breed type -- all of which requires and implies concentration on specific dogs and therefore lines.
Perhaps of even more consequence was the rise in popularity of the Toy Manchester which required concentrated breeding in order to consistently produce smaller size. This effect was compounded by breeder's attempts to improve consistency, structure and soundness. So, while breeding strategies like intervariety breeding certainly helped to preserve the breed as a whole and specific lines within it, the net effect was a gradual loss of primary ancestors. Pedigree data indicates that a total of 19 recorded male lines and 18 female lines have been lost, the majority during the period 1950-1970. The last tail line loss was in 1980 with Merryman's Apollo, the last descendent of Merry Turk.