Bakewell came first. Before his day, the fleece was the thing sheep growers were mainly interested in. They wanted as big animals and as much wool as possible.
Bakewell was not interested in wool. What he was after was an improved mutton-producing breed—or rather one which, besides meat, yielded a large amount of fat. That was what the market of his day demanded, in consequence of the way in which mutton was served. The usual practice, we read, "was to put a large joint of fat mutton over a dish of potatoes at the workman's table. The meat went to the head of the family; the potatoes, saturated with the meat and gravy, making a savory meal for the junior members. Thousands in the manufacturing and mining districts were for many years brought up in this way, so that, in breeding fat sheep, Bakewell had a better warrant than would apply in the present day, when fat is obtained in more palatable and digestible form in butter and its cheaper imitations, and when the working classes, as well as others, prefer to have lean and juicy mutton."
An anecdote in Pitt's "General Survey of the Agriculture of Leicester" (1809) throws further light on the situation: "Your mutton is so fat that I cannot eat it," said a gentleman to Bakewell, who replied: "I do not breed mutton for gentlemen, but for the public; and even my mutton may be kept leaner to suit every palate by stocking harder in proportion and by killing the sheep in time."
Gradually the "public's" taste for mutton became more "gentlemanly." At present the article most in demand is a carcass weighing about twenty pounds per quarter "with a large preponderance of lean flesh."
The change was accelerated by the activity of the Ellman family. Whereas Bakewell had operated with the long-wool Leicester breed, the meat of which was coarse-grained, with little delicacy or Flavor, the Ellmans revealed to the world the superlative gastronomic attributes of mutton yielded by the short-wool Southdowns.
In muttonland the Southdown is what the Bresse is in the chicken world.
In London markets you may find palatable meat cut from the carcasses of the Wensleydale, the Suffolk, the Dorset, the Exmoor, the Irish Roscommon, and other breeds; but the three breeds which are rated highest for epicures are the Southdown, the Welsh Mountain, and the Scotch Black-faced.
Note that all three are mountain sheep. It is to the hill-lands we must go for meat of the finest Flavor. As a rule, we read in the admirable Vinton book referred to, "the fleezy denizens of the mountains and downs were distinguished by the excellence of their mutton, their active habits, necessitated by long journeys in search of the scanty food that was available, conducing to the development of the finest quality of meat."
This point is gastronomically so very important that I will quote also what Professor Tanner wrote on it, as long ago as 1869, in a paper on the "Influence of Climate, etc., on Sheep," published in the "Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England":