History of Yorkshire Terrier Dog

The Yorkshire Terrier, or Yorkie for short, finds it humble beginnings in Northern England, in the counties of Yorkshire, Manchester & Leeds, in the work of the years prior to 1750.

In the work of the 19th century, Scottish weavers began to arrive & brought with them the sturdy Scottish Terrier. Far from being a simple bloodline the Scottish Terrier has been attributed to generating several different types of Terriers including the Yorkshire Terrier.
Part of the Scottish Terrier bloodlines later became the breeds today known as the Skye, Scottish Terrier, West Highland White Terrier & the last of the named from their separation, the Cairn Terrier.
The Scottish Terrier was also known to be on Argyle or the Isle of Skye. It was of a bluish color & was also called a broken or smooth haired Scots depending on the length of coat it had.

There is every possibility that they were forerunners to the modern day Skye Terrier. Other breeds that have ancestral claim to the Yorkie are the Paisley & Clydesdale Terriers & the Broken-Haired Scotch Terrier.
All of these Scottish breeds, along with some English ones, were working canines, used to keep the vermin under control in the coal mines & mills.

In an hard work to produce canines with exceptional skill at catching mice & rats, the common men of the day would breed only smallest, quickest & best ratters of the bunch. These men were not out to produce a purebred, sophisticated breed of dog; in lieu they desired the best canines to keep the mice away. This is the reason why no records were kept as to what breeds were mixed to generate the Yorkshire Terrier.

The best guess is that miners in Yorkshire County bred the Black & Tan English Terrier with the lots of breeds of the Scottish Terriers. It is even believed that Maltese may be thrown in there somewhere. The resulting Terriers were then probably crossed with yet again other types of terriers such as the Welsh Terrier.
In the late 1800s, the first written recordings about the ancestors of the modern-day Yorkshire Terrier began to appear. Most of these were written by rich educated men who had travelled to Yorkshire County & witnessed the clever, spunky canines chasing down their prey.

A elderly breeder of the variety told me that the first of them came from Scotland, where they had been accidentally produced from a cross between the silk-coated Skye (the Clydesdale) & the black & tan Terrier. could expect that a dog, partaking in a degree of both its parents, could be produced from a smooth-coated dog, a long-coated bitch or vice-versa.
Perhaps, or animals so bred had been brought by a quantity of the Paisley weavers in Yorkshire & there, suitably admired, pains were taken to perpetuate the strain."