Essex pig

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Essex
An Essex boar
An Essex boar
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Traits
  • Pig
  • Sus domesticus

The Essex is a breed of

domestic pig originating in the United Kingdom
.

Characteristics

The Essex, in its traditional form, was a smallish pig with 'pricked' ears and a black ground colour, with a broad band of white 'sheeting' across the shoulders.

History

Royal Agricultural Show in Derby

Like other old British pig breeds, the ancestor of the Essex may have originated in the county of the same name from selective breeding of local wild pigs.[

smallholders. The Old Essex, as it came to be known, was deliberately "improved" in the mid 19th century by crossing it with imported pigs.[1] In the early nineteenth century, while travelling in Italy, Charles Western, 1st Baron Western obtained Neapolitan pigs to cross with his Essex sows. One of his tenants, Fisher Hobbs, bred the resulting Neapolitan-Essex boars with his "coarse" Essex sows and established the Improved Essex. In 1840 an Improved Essex boar and sow, both bred by Hobbs, each took first prize in its class at the second show of the Royal Agricultural Society at Cambridge.[2]

The Essex pig remained locally popular until as recently as the mid-1950s, and had actually increased in numbers during the

Second World War and immediately afterwards, based on its reputation for hardiness and its ability to feed itself by foraging.[3] In 1954, 488 Essex boars (2% of the total British stock) were still licensed, and 3,716 sows registered.[3]

The position of the Essex breed changed markedly after the publication of a 1955 report by the Advisory Committee on the Development of Pig Production in the United Kingdom, chaired by Sir

Large White
, and as a result the Essex pig went into a steep decline.

While the breed societies of the

extinct
in 1967, although it was thought a few pure-bred individuals might survive on small farms.

Re-creation of the breed

Later research showed that one farmer, John Croshaw, had refused to amalgamate his herd of Essex pigs (the "Glascote Herd"), which retained a pure Essex bloodline despite being officially registered as British Saddlebacks: Croshaw had carefully managed his stock to avoid inbreeding.[5]

References

  1. ^ Wiseman, J. The pig: a British history, Duckworth, 2000, p.45
  2. ^ The British Saddleback. British Pig Association. Archived 23 February 2008.
  3. ^ a b The Decline of Traditional Breeds. British Pig Association. Archived 27 February 2012.
  4. ^ Development of pig production in the United Kingdom: report of the Advisory Committee on Development of Pig Production in the United Kingdom, HMSO, 1955
  5. ^ Essex Pig Society. Archived January 2010.
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