Feature: From the Archive - Henry Wellcome’s cats
29 March 2012. By Jo Maddocks and Sharon Messenger
What's in the archive?
A selection of materials related to the husbandry of Henry Wellcome's cats.
Why is it so special?
When Henry Wellcome died, the 'Liverpool Echo' reported how he had lived in a hotel while maintaining a palatial Regent's Park residence for the sole occupancy of his three beloved cats. These materials document the detailed instructions and information he gave to those looking after his pets.
One memo notes that the cats were "accustomed to eating cooked beef, ox and lamb liver and kidney", as well as boiled hake and cod, salmon and sardines, and occasionally, "a little raw beef, if it is finely cut up".
Fresh meat and fish were delivered daily to no. 6 Gloucester Gate by Wellcome's own butcher and fishmonger ("Not...from a 'cat's meat' butcher") and were cooked by Wellcome's staff for the cats to enjoy alongside fresh milk and water. Potatoes were strictly, if inexplicably, forbidden.
It was Wellcome's "special desire" that the cats should be "well cared for, and not teased or abused in any way".
Can I see it?
Yes, the papers can be seen in the Wellcome Library in London by anybody, on request.
Want to know more?
The death of one of the kittens, Zipper, is mentioned in Frances Larsen's 'An Infinity of Things' (Oxford University Press, 2009). The news of this event was broken to Wellcome by his trusted colleague Peter Johnston-Saint. After a post mortem revealed the cause of death to be feline influenza, vaccines for the other cats were provided by Wellcome's Physiological Research Laboratories.
You can also find out more at the Wellcome Library archives. Cat-related records include WA/HSW/ PE/A.30, WA/HMM/Co/Sai/A.5, WA/ HSW/PH/K and WF/E/01/06/07.
This feature also appears in issue 70 of ‘Wellcome News’.
Image: Henry Wellcome's cats, c.1900-1936. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
