From The Wire Fox Terrier Association:
The first wire fox terrier which is authentically recorded was OLD TIP.   He was bred by the Master of the Sinnington Hounds in Yorkshire around 1866.   The dog was never shown but was bred and used solely for work.  Although his actual pedigree is unknown Old Tip is the source from which all our present-day wires emanate.  Old Tip sired three champion sons from dams of unknown breeding - one of these, PINCHER, born 1869, was destined to fame in the history of wires.  He was mated to his own daughter and this union produced OLD JESTER in 1875 who was shown but did not appear on the bench until he was 5 years old.  Old Jester in turn produced many winners.
 
From http://www.foxburrow.com/AboutFoxTerrier.html:
The most famous of the original Wire Fox Terrier's was Kendal's Old Tip, whelped in 1866, the first authentically recorded wire-haired terrier. He was mostly white, a desirable trait in a terrier, with one marked ear, and sixteen pounds in weight. Old Tip, mated to a Smooth bitch, produced Pincher, who in turn produced Old Jester, the sire of Young Jester. Mated to his own grand-daughter, Meg II, Young Jester produced Knavesmire Jest, who also produced great offspring. However, Young Jester's claim to fame was his mating to the Smooth bitch, Meersbrook Crissy, which resulted in Meersbrook Bristles (whelped in 1892), whose genes can be found in innumerable Wire Fox Terriers to this day.
 
Wire Fox Terrier Online:
The first wire fox terrier of which there is authentic record was Kendall's Old Tip, bred and owned by Tom M. Kendall who was Master of the Sinnington Hounds in Yorkshire from 1860 to 1875 as his father and his grandfather had been before him. The Sinnington was the oldest hunt in England, having been founded by the Duke of Buckingham in the seventeenth century, and the terrain over which it worked was the broad acres and moody moors of Yorkshire. Tip was a hunt terrier ,a workman and was the result of long tradition and experience with the kind of dogs best fitted to draw the fox. Every Wire Fox Terrier living today traces in tail male directly to Tip-the Adam of the breed. Kept solely for work and never exhibited, we know very little of him other than he was a rugged little working type, hard of coat, short and sturdy of body, round and hard of bone. His Ancestry is unknown. It is reputed that he came from rough black and tan stock, although Kendall said that the parents of Tip were white with light tan head markings.
 
From three rather ordinary smooth bitches of unknown breeding Tip begot three famous sons, Pincher, Venture, and Wooton's (afterwards Shirley's )Tip, each a champion, each from a different mother. Pincher won many prizes, but lasting fame is only due to the fact, that mated to his own daughter, he sired (old) Jester, an early pillar of the breed.