Peter III (cat)

Peter became the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office on 27 August 1947, following the death of Peter II, who had been hit by a car in Whitehall.[1][2] He was still a kitten when he assumed the role and wore a tartan cat collar with a medallion bearing his name.[3] Peter attracted widespread public attention following an appearance on the BBC current affairs programme Tonight in 1958;[4][5] he also had a large fanbase in both Italy and the United States and received letters and gifts from Australia.[5][6] In 1958, a worker at the Home Office, in response to a letter complaining that Peter's food allowance was too low, noted that he had left the chewed body of a pigeon inside his desk, and, as he had not eaten it, was therefore "not suffering from starvation".[4]

In October 1958, it was reported that Peter's living allowance had been raised due to rising costs; a Home Office spokesman said that "everyone seems satisfied that he does his job well".[7] However, Peter did not receive a pay increase in 1962, during the chancellor of the Exchequer Selwyn Lloyd's "Pay Pause".[3][8] In 1960, Peter defecated on a doormat near the Cenotaph shortly before the Remembrance Day ceremony; it was disposed of by a civil servant before the Queen arrived.[6] Peter appeared on the Home Secretary's official 1958 Christmas card,[9] and in an October 1962 issue of the magazine Women's Realm.[4] Throughout his life, Peter made a number of appearances in media, including in television and film.[10] Speaking in 2017, Chris Day, the Head of Modern Domestic Records at The National Archives called Peter "the first superstar cat of Whitehall".[5]

The procession immediately preceding the burial

Peter was euthanised on 9 March 1964 after suffering an incurable liver infection, aged 16.[11][12] Two days after his death, Ronald Garvey, the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man, offered the Home Office a Manx cat;[13] on 8 May, he was replaced by that cat, called Peta.[14] Peter's burial was held "with full honours" on 13 March 1964, at the PDSA pet cemetery in Ilford, Essex, at a plot of land that had been "reserved for Peter for several years".[10] It was immediately preceded by a procession including a donkey, two women from the Home Office staff and various journalists and photographers.[15][16] He was buried in a brass-handled veneered oak coffin,[note 1] on which a nosegay of daffodils and anemones had been placed, along with a card which read "To Peter, from an animal lover";[10] this was lowered into the grave from "a purple-draped wheelbarrow".[18][19] At the burial, Amy Gough, a civil servant, said:[19]

We'll miss him. He was the friendliest cat ... he slept in in-trays, and on copies of The Times, and he was particularly fond of liver.

• List of individual cats