Clifford L B Hubbard affectionately known as ‘Doggie’; to his myriad of friends and devotees throughout the world was arguably the greatest canine bibliographer of all time.

Up until he died aged 84 years in 2000 he continued to collect books entirely on canine subjects, the bulk of his collection of 24,000 volumes which contains the rarest of books is now in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Intellect

His towering intellect and knowledge of dogs was exploited by canine historians, writers and editors. He wrote about twenty nine books and edited scores of others and still found time to write innumerable articles for the world’s press. There is little doubt that his expertise backed with extensive research had a profound effect on the thinking of our kennel authorities which had a domino effect on other authorities around the world.

His life was no sinecure, as a scruffy boy of 14 he walked to London from Bath to get work in pet shops and kennels; he worked for Bob Martins, producers of early canine supplementary products; went to sea as a stoker and learnt to fly and served in the RAF.

After the war he worked as a buyer and retailer of rare books for Harrods which started him on his own career as the antiquarian dealer to the world of dogs. In 1976 he opened his own retail book shop in Buxton, Derbyshire and from then on became a familiar figure at the championship dog shows with his mobile shop happy to dispense his knowledge and charm to anyone he thought interested or interesting.

Simple life

A man of small stature, a cloud of grey hair with a clipped moustache he looked remarkably like Lloyd George and he lived a simple almost austere life. A modest man who never believed he had contributed anything to the world took pride in the fact that the National Library would hold his book collection for the rest of time and the fact that he was appointed an honorary member of The Kennel Club. He had a whimsical sense of humour, on occasions when he had to attend official functions he would seriously tell people that his greatest achievement was being the dog show champion conker player.

We’ll never get another one.

Robert Killick