Adopt a Shelter Cat Month: Victorian cat lover changes fate of felines

The fortunes of cats rise and fall.

In ancient Egypt, the cat was adored, even worshipped, but their descendants wander the streets today shunned and feral.

In Europe, the cat was once thought to be the tool of Satan. By the late 1800s, their social position had been slightly elevated to a necessary rat-catching nuisance.

But to the rescue was one man, Harrison Weir, an English gentleman and artist, who brought the cat out of the back rooms and streets and into the salons with a master stroke: He organized the first fancy cat show in 1871.

Weir believed ages of ill-treatment and cruelty had made the cat self-reliant and useful as a mouser. But the cat’s beauty and interest was unappreciated, he thought.

Weir’s cat shows indeed perked up interest in the feline and prompted the development in 1892 of cat clubs, an idea he later rejected as not being focused enough on the animal.

Nonetheless, by 1900 magazines credited Weir with bringing cats off the streets and into the home.

You could say that Harrison Weir led the way for the cat to become an internet star today.