Cat Let’s Face It, I Was Crazy Before The Cats Shirt

Cats have lived side-by-side with humans since before the city of London was built, first being domesticated in the Middle East about 9000 years ago. Our collections are filled with images and representations of cats – and sometimes, the historical cats themselves. This jug for example, is from about 1670. Novelty jugs in the shape of cats were popular in Stuart London, particularly to serve cream or milk.The famous London diarist Samuel Pepys mentions cats in his account of everyday life in 17th century London, including being woken at 1am by his yowling housecat, and an extraordinary sight after the Great Fire of 1666:”I also did see a poor cat taken out of a hole in the chimney, joyning to the wall of the Exchange; with, the hair all burned off the body, and yet alive.”Black cat named Oliver. The cat is preserved in a seated position, with a yellow ribbon around its neck and glass eyes. It is contained under a glass dome with an oval wooden base. Also in the dome is a small silver slipper and the remains of a floral bouquet, now badly decomposedThis is the taxidermised body of a cat named Oliver, who was owned by a family in Charlton around the end of the 19th century. Oliver is preserved in a seated position, with a yellow ribbon around its neck and glass eyes. Alongside him are a small silver slipper and the remains of a floral bouquet, now badly decomposed. We don’t know exactly what they signified, but they’re very suggestive of a wedding. Perhaps Oliver was a wedding present. He was clearly a beloved pet, and is an interesting example of the changing status of domestic cats during the Victorian period.

Cat Let’s Face It, I Was Crazy Before The Cats Shirt

Only recently have many cats been fed, cherished, or kept indoors. For much of the 19th century cats were kept primarily to eradicate vermin. They were frequently ill-fed and mistreated, and there were many strays in the streets of London. Cats were also widely used for scientific experimentation, until they became the subject of anti-vivisection campaigns at the end of the 19th century. Towards the end of the 19th century, cats began to be kept more widely as family pets and companions, particularly amongst the fashionable middle classes. Oliver is an example of this growing trend in pet-keeping.A cat and rat found entombed in a London sugar warehouse.A less well-preserved example from our collection, the mummified body of this cat and rat were found behind some bottles at the London Docks in the 1890s. Cats were allowed to run freely around the busy warehouses that lined the Thames, to try and control the vermin that feasted on the goods within. These working cats were expected to earn their keep, and some London businesses even put their resident mousers on the payroll (like the Post Office, which allowed one shilling per week for working cats in its Money Order Office, to supplement their catch).