Members of the breed were difficult to train, but formed a strong attachment with their owners and were useful for hunting both on land and in water.

[2] The theory of the Duke of Norfolk-based origins of the Norfolk Spaniel was thought disproved by the investigation of James Farrow, a 19th-century spaniel breeder, who wrote to Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk in order to find out the truth about the origins of the breed.

[3] An alternative origin was proposed by Rawdon Briggs Lee in volume two of his 1897 work A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland.

[7][8] By the 1890s, the breed had become common throughout the counties of England, leading dog writers such as Rawdon Briggs Lee to question the authenticity of its origins, or that the various liver and white spaniels from around England constituted a single breed; "Personally, I do not consider the liver and white spaniel any particular variety at all, nor do I believe that it has ever been indigenous to Norfolk.

Mercer described the breed in 1890 as being "virtually extinct in its purity",[10] with its liver and white colours running through any numbers of miscellaneous spaniels, and he too discredits the origins involving the Duke of Norfolk.

[11] The change in terminology was not smooth or immediate, with James Watson in his 1905 work, The Dog Book, still referring to the Norfolk Spaniel as a breed name.

[1] Some members of the breed could be noisy, and were described as "babbling"[10] and making noise on the hunt in a similar fashion to hounds, while others were far quieter.

[16] It had long legs, feathered ears, a white area on forehead, which was said to "[add] a great deal to his beauty",[17] but there were differences from the English Springer, including a broader skull and shorter neck.