August 3, 1867

We read of Stanley Baldwin (August 3, 1867 to December 14, 1947) who was a:

'Conservative politician and three times Prime Minister during the 1920s and 1930s. Baldwin's premierships saw two major political events, the General Strike and the Abdication of Edward VIII. In both he was a steadying influence and his popular public broadcasts brought the nation through the crises. After 1939, Baldwin was criticised for supposed failures, notably his doomed attempts to appease Adolf Hitler and apparent reluctance to re-arm Britain in the lead-up to war. However recent scholarship has restored his reputation revealing that a rearmament programme was in place by the time of Baldwin's retirement in 1937.'

Yet, there is oddly little about cats during his ministry.

Accounts of the Downng Street mousers, specifically the BBC list (back of the nutshell type of tally):

DOWNING STREET CATS

1920s - Rufus of England
1930s and 1940s - Munich Mouser
1970s - Wilberforce
1989 to 1997 - Humphrey
2007 - Sybil
2011 - Larry

makes no special notice of the Baldwin years.

So, despite the fact Stanley Baldwin was a cousin to great cat lover and writer Rudyard Kipling, and nephew of great cat lover and painter, Edward Burne-Jones, the lack of references to felines may be evidence of a lack of them in the Baldwin household. Our conclusion is enforced by this recollection, mentioned in Baldwin; the unexpected Prime Minister (Harford Montgomery Hyde, 1973), that during the "austere war- economy" at Astley Hall (his home) there was no presence of "dog or cat to warm the hearth."