Due to the increasing popularity of shooting flying birds, and the corresponding need to find the birds, in the mid 19th century, the initial Retriever breeds were developed. Some breeds, such as the Golden, were carefully bred for by a single individual, others such as the Labrador were isolated in one or two kennels for their development. Still others were developed as gundog fanciers tried breeding the "best to the best" and intermixing a wide variety of breeds and abilities. The general confusion over the origins of the Retrievers partly lies in the fact that at this time the word "Retriever" referred to the function rather than the breed of dog, and so any dog that proved itself capable of retrieving was considered one, whether purebred, crossbred or mongrel.
Spaniels, setters, and waterdogs quickly proved themselves the best at this type of work and provided the foundation for all of today's Retrievers, in varying proportions. However, the exact sequence of development is in many cases lost in the distance of history.
It seems clear that the St. John's Water Dog from Newfoundland, played a significant role in the general development of the Retriever breeds, though no one is quite certain of the dogs used in developing this breed.
By all accounts, the development of the modern Flatcoated Retriever is credited to Mr. S. E. Shirley in the early 1870s. St. John's Water Dogs, water spaniels, and possibly Scotch collies were all used to develop the Flatcoat. He stabilized the wavy or Curlycoated Retriever and fixed the type of the Flatcoated Retriever. Shirley himself did not use Setters in his development of the Flatcoat, but it is probable that the Retriever mixes at that point already had infusions of Setter blood from earlier in the century. He is known to have used Labradors once they became available outside the Buccleugh and Malmesbury kennels.
	Mr. Shirley is well-known also for founding the Kennel Club in 1873. The breed's close association with this man meant that they were bred at the onset for both showing and hunting unlike other breeds that were privately bred by estates with their own grounds and gameskeepers.
Given the depletion of breeding stock, especially after the second World War, Flatcoats and Labradors were widely interbred to broaden the gene pool and increase the number of dogs to a safer level. For example, the Labrador CH. Horton Max, a well-regarded Labrador at the turn of the century was actually an interbred, sired by the influential CH. Darenth, a Flatcoat. For some reason, while those breeders in Flatcoats are aware of this mixing, many Labrador breeders are not.
The next influential patron of the breed was Mr. H. Reginald Cooke, born in 1860 who saw some of the first dogs that Shirley established, their hey day during the turn of the century, their uncertain fortune through the World Wars and finally their decline in numbers afterwards. His kennel, Riverside, dominated the show scene for over sixty years. He also collected wins in field trials. This domination was both fortunate in keeping the breed on an even keel and unfortunate in keeping other patrons out. He was an advocate of a medium-sized dog as being the best for work, and was concerned about keeping the hunting ability alive in the show dogs. Contrary to popular supposition, though, Cooke purchased many dogs bred by others and there was no exclusive 'Riverside' strain of Flatcoats.
The Flatcoated Retriever's decline directly coincides with the Labrador Retriever's almost meteoric post-war rise in popularity. The Labrador was considered superior to the Flatcoat in the field trials. The domination of the Flatcoats by the Riverside kennel may have also helped to limit the possible growth that the Flatcoat might have otherwise enjoyed alongside the Labrador; it is unclear whether this was beneficial or detrimental to the breed in the long run. There are risks in being wildly popular or in being too rare.