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Tama (Kishi Station)
Wakayama Electric Railway gave Tama an official post at Kishi Station. The calico became a symbol of the Kishigawa Line, and the station building took design cues from her. The railway credits her with helping to draw attention to the line, alongside the local volunteers who worked to keep it running.
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Towser (Glenturret Distillery)
Towser caught mice at Glenturret, where the barley needed to make whisky drew rodents. Guinness World Records puts her tally at an estimated 28,899. The figure came from a short period of observation, and its suspiciously exact final digits tell a second story about how a working cat became a record holder.
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Larry (10 Downing Street)
Larry came to 10 Downing Street from Battersea in February 2011. The government's own history gives him the title Chief Mouser and lists checking antique furniture for naps among his duties. The dry phrasing is part of what makes this particular government record worth reading.
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Dewey Readmore Books
Staff at Spencer Public Library in Iowa found a kitten in the book return after a cold night in 1988. They adopted him, held a naming contest, and gave him a job description. The library still preserves those details, which tell you as much about the staff and patrons who made room for Dewey as they do about the cat.
More about Dewey Readmore Books5
Mrs. Chippy
Despite the name, Mrs. Chippy was a male tabby. He sailed aboard Endurance with its carpenter, Harry McNeish, and Frank Hurley photographed him on the expedition. The cat did not survive it. A bronze at McNeish's grave in Wellington puts the two companions together again.
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Room 8 (Elysian Heights Elementary)
A stray tabby turned up at Elysian Heights Elementary in Los Angeles around 1952 and stayed for 16 years. Richard Hewett's photographs show Room 8 doing ordinary school things, including sitting at a desk with a child reading. They make it easy to see how the cat became part of the school day.
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Trim (Matthew Flinders' cat)
Trim sailed with Matthew Flinders during his circumnavigation of Australia. After the cat disappeared in Mauritius, Flinders wrote the biographical tribute shown here, now held by Royal Museums Greenwich. The page starts with a detail about Trim being allowed at the table, the kind of routine that makes him recognizable as a particular companion.
More about Trim (Matthew Flinders' cat)8
Hodge (Samuel Johnson's cat)
James Boswell remembered Samuel Johnson going out to buy Hodge oysters himself. Johnson worried the servants might come to resent the cat if he made the shopping their job. A dictionary and oyster shells appear with Hodge in Jon Bickley's bronze at Gough Square, a later tribute to that little domestic story.
More about Hodge (Samuel Johnson's cat)9
Stubbs (Nagley's General Store)
Stubbs became a fixture at Nagley's General Store in Talkeetna, Alaska, where visitors asked for him by his honorary title, mayor. The community is unincorporated and has no mayoral office. The title tells you how a store cat became a reason for people to stop in and ask about the town.
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Socks (The Clinton White House)
Socks posed at the White House press podium in 1993 and received enough mail to need help answering it. Volunteers at the U.S. Soldiers and Airmen's Home sent back postcards or prints bearing his paw print. The presidential library has preserved some of the correspondence.
More about Socks (The Clinton White House)11
Tibs the Great
Tibs caught mice at the British Post Office headquarters and had a weekly allowance of two shillings and sixpence. When he died after 14 years there, the staff magazine ran an obituary. The Postal Museum's illustrated badge recalls a working cat whose job and pay made it into the institutional record.
More about Tibs the Great12
Jock VII (Chartwell)
When Chartwell opened to visitors in 1966, Churchill's family asked that a ginger cat named Jock live at the house. Jock VII, a rescue kitten welcomed in 2020, is one documented successor. His photograph shows how the estate has kept that particular household tradition going.
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Palmerston (Foreign Office)
Palmerston came from Battersea to the Foreign Office in 2016. The black-and-white mouser acquired a name from a former prime minister and had his first reported catch that spring. His tenure gives a glimpse of how a department known for diplomacy adopted a mascot with a much more ordinary assignment.
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