Sinclair’s continued failure to deliver on his promise to provide Banks with live Sheep of sufficient quality to please Banks begins to grate on Banks and becomes evident in his writing. Banks believes that the processing of Shetland wool to remove the numerous "Stichel Hairs" is so laborious and expensive that it is hopeless for a business enterprise and further suggests to Sinclair that he should send his fleeces to the felt markets…

Banks to Sinclair

Sinclair’s allegiance to the Shetland wanes as he notes:

D’aubenton’s [Merino] sheep have arrived.

Sinclair to Banks

And later Sinclair finally gets his wish:

The Royal Ram has safely arrived…

Sinclair to Banks

And so, Sinclair the adamant defender of the Fine wool of the Sheep of Shetland and the role they should play in revitalizing the British Wool Trade capitulates completely:

Our progress [in cross breeding], I trust will be very rapid, for, having collected rams of the Spanish breed from every quarter, we shall have next year, in Scotland alone, about 2000 lambs with Spanish blood in their veins and Spanish Fleeces on their backs. The progress afterwards will be rapid beyond conception.

Sinclair to Banks

The extraordinary collection of correspondence sampled above gives additional credence to the view that the Sheep of Shetland from the Bronze Age up at least through the end of the 18^th Century were characteristically a double-coated sheep of mixed indigenous genetic make-up overwhelmed by the influx of Northern Short-tailed Sheep of Nordic extraction.

Some time after the wave of influx of Merinos to Britain with thousands of them being acquired by Sir John Sinclair, records suggest that the "Stichel Hair Problem" was solved and it is speculated that during the 19^th century there was an increasing number of single coated, uniformly fine wooled phenotypes being bred. Whether this was the result of introducing "Spanish Blood" to the Sheep of Shetland is an arguable point not well documented here. However let us not forget that Sinclair was the "Laird of Orkney" and the Scottish Isles and was keenly interested in both the Sheep of Shetland and the improvement of British wool. Further, there is documentation of Merinos going to the Orkneys, and the other Islands surrounding Scotland and even to Iceland.

Prior to the 18^th Century, almost all the earlier descriptions of Shetland Sheep indicate a double-coated animal with clean legs and face. During and after the 18^th Century we know that Merinos, Scottish Blackface and Cheviots to name a few, were introduced to Shetland more than once. And we know that the breeding programs began focusing on uniformity of fleece and fine wool lacking ‘Stichel Hairs".

In any event, I believe that the pressures created by Sinclair and Banks culminated in the establishment of a refined Shetland similar in phenotype to the best examples of the Standard of 1927 as interpreted by the SSBG. For it was these marvelously fine-wooled sheep of crimped fleece that the 1927 Standard sought to preserve, the Classic Shetland, as I call it that finally met the criticisms of Banks by breeding out the "Stichel Hairs" that prevented him from adopting it as the core of the King’s breeding program.

During the early years of the 20th century there was concern at the continuing prevalence of crossing, which especially in the case of the Cheviot and Blackface, led to a marked deterioration in the wool clip for Shetland as a whole. It was recorded that in some districts purebred animals no longer existed.

This realization prompted a group of Shetlanders to conclude that if the quality of the wool deteriorated so as to be no better than that obtainable elsewhere in the world the hosiery industry would be at serious risk. In the early 1920's the revenue derived from hosiery, according to Cluness (1951) was "in the vicinity of £100,000 per year." As a result the Shetland Flock Book Society (SFBS) was established in 1927 with Dr. J.C. Bowie of Bixter as its President and Andrew Tait of Vementry its Secretary. The Department of Agriculture for Scotland co-operated by providing a subsidy for purebred rams and the tide began to turn slowly despite the continued desire of many to produce crossbred lambs that were more commercially attractive.

In 1977 the Rare Breeds Survival Trust classified Shetland sheep as "Category 3: endangered", but in 1985 a change was made to "Priority 5: Above Numerical Guidelines" and a Breeders' Group set up within the Trust to maintain the characteristics of sheep in mainland Britain as defined by the SFBS in 1927.

Since the 1970’s, Breeders in the UK (SSBG now SSS) adhering to the Shetland Flock Book Society Standard and oral tradition have bred to maintain a "Classic" fine-wooled single coated phenotype that probably reflects the best that Shetland had to offer in the years following the influence of Banks and Sinclair. These Shetlands were probably developed and bred during the 19^th Century because of the need to address the problem of Stichel Hairs as shearing replaced rooing.

The Shetland Sheep characteristic of American breeding are perhaps closer to the Shetland that predates the 18^th Century when rooing was the principle means of harvesting the wool. It differs from the Shetland Sheep bred elsewhere by having a predominantly longer staple that is double-coated and wavy to crimpy in nature. It, like its SSBG cousins in England and Scotland usually has clean, fine-boned legs and a clean face with a slight but noticeable concavity between the muzzle and the poll. Ironically, the Americans breeders have not bred to select for fleeces that are easily rooed, which, no doubt, was an important attribute of the ancient breed.