Mr Charles Cruft had died in
September 1938, his widow,
assisted by the usual Cruft’s team,
successfully managing the 1939 show,
but by 1942, with no cessation of hostilities in sight, intermediaries approached the Kennel Club with a view to it accepting responsibility for the future of Cruft’s Dog Show. Transferred to Olympia the first post-war Cruft’s, occupying the traditional dates of the Kennel Club’s own show, attracted a record attendance of nearly 50,000. There was no Cruft’s in 1949, but 1950 saw it return to its traditional February dates, which were maintained until size forced a move to the NEC Birmingham and initially a January date.
An end to hostilities and the probability of a large influx of new fanciers encouraged the Kennel Club to undertake one of its periodic reviews. Yet again the registration system came under the spotlight, with Change of Names limited to the addition of a registered affix to an existing name on a single occasion, eliminating problems caused by unlimited complete name changes. This single alteration encouraging breeders to register an affix, as well as whole litters in the certain knowledge that their origin could no longer be masked by a simple name change.
