Oxford has spent centuries producing people who know a great deal about something. Its cats have reached much the same position without the inconvenience of attending tutorials. They occupy the best chairs, supervise the movement of people through ancient doorways and regard the arrival of another distinguished visitor as a possible interruption to lunch.
I have been researching Oxford’s cats in preparation for a talk I have been asked to give, as Chief Executive of Cats Protection, to a local group here in Oxfordshire. It is the sort of research that begins with a perfectly sensible enquiry and ends with you investigating whether a cat really did travel to Winchester in a milk delivery van. There are worse ways to prepare a talk.
Follow Oxford’s cats through the city’s history and you discover some good stories, a few surprises and a university willing to give a cat a staff profile.
A street fit for a cat
Catte Street seems a promising place to begin. Beside the Bodleian and Hertford College, its name suggests that cats have been at home here for a very long time. It was recorded as Kattestreete in the early thirteenth century and, wonderfully, as Mousecatcher’s Lane in 1442. Nobody seems certain how it first got its name, although Mousecatcher’s Lane leaves little doubt about the association.
The name itself has had adventures. During the nineteenth century the street became known as Catherine Street, before the city council restored Catte Street in December 1930. The poet Robert Bridges had objected to the modern alternative, arguing that restoring the historic name would inconvenience nobody. I rather like the thought of a Poet Laureate taking the trouble to put the cat back into Catte Street.
The cat who left his grin behind
Oxford’s most famous literary feline is, of course, the Cheshire Cat. Lewis Carroll, otherwise Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, was a mathematics tutor at Christ Church. Yet the expression “to grin like a Cheshire cat” was already in circulation before he borrowed it. Carroll gave the grin an unforgettable owner; he did not invent the saying.
Christ Church has a lovely story linking the character to the old horse chestnut in the Deanery Garden, known as Alice’s Tree. Its shape is said to have inspired the cat, although there is no firm evidence that it did. In July 2026, the college reported that work to care for the roughly 300-year-old tree was helping to keep it healthy. A tree associated with a disappearing cat is, happily, still with us.
For a more dependable sighting, there is a Cheshire Cat sculpture tucked into the Literary Garden at Oxford Botanic Garden. Created by Julian Warren, it has taken up residence in a white mulberry. Here, at least, you can look for a cat with a reasonable prospect of finding it, rather than discovering that it has slipped through a door marked “Private” just as you reached for your camera.
An unfortunate encounter at Jesus
Not all the stories have happy endings. Joseph Hoare, Principal of Jesus College from 1768 until 1802, is remembered in the college’s history for a dreadful domestic accident. By then very deaf and nearly blind, he reportedly trapped his cat’s tail beneath his chair. Unable to hear its distress, he was scratched on the leg; the wounds became infected and proved fatal.
This is sometimes told as the story of a cat that killed a Principal. That seems rather unfair to the cat, which was trying to escape a painful situation. It is also a sad reminder of how dangerous an infection could be before antibiotics.
The house of Simpkin
Hertford’s cats have something approaching a royal succession, and this story comes with a family connection: Geoffrey and Mary Warnock’s daughter Boz is a very close friend of mine. It was her sister Fanny who brought home the first Simpkin in the early 1970s, despite their parents having decided that moving into college would mean an end to keeping pets. The black-and-white kitten came from Blanca Bartosova, a musician and family friend who had acquired him in Cornwall, only to discover that she could not keep him in her London flat. Geoffrey was initially reluctant, but the kitten climbed onto his shoulder before settling into his lap. The policy appears to have been revised immediately.
Named after the cat in Beatrix Potter’s The Tailor of Gloucester, Simpkin also liked to visit neighbouring New College, where he once got stuck on a high roof and had to be rescued by the fire brigade. A later member of the dynasty, Simpkin III, travelled to Winchester in a milk delivery van. Quite a journey for a cat who had only climbed aboard a delivery van.
Today, Simpkin IV appears on Hertford’s staff pages as College Cat. He arrived in January 2017, having previously been known as Buddy, and came to Hertford through Blue Cross at Burford after a difficult start in life. He apparently keeps an eye on college affairs; his office is in the Lodge and his hours are described as “on an ad hoc basis”. At least nobody is pretending he works to a timetable.
Rival colleges, rival cats
Nearby Exeter has Walter, named after its founder, Walter de Stapledon. He arrived as a kitten during the first lockdown in 2020. His first evening was apparently spent behind kitchen cupboards, from which he was encouraged out with videos of other cats. Even an Oxford appointment can involve a certain amount of settling in.
Walter and Simpkin later fell out over Simpkin’s visits to Exeter’s library, where he helped himself to food and favourite seats. In 2022, Simpkin was reported to have been banned from the library. He kept going back. Anyone who has tried to tell a cat where it can and cannot go will recognise the problem. Walter remains a public figure: the university was celebrating him as “Pawfessor Walter” in 2026.
At Mansfield, Basil and Beatrice are uncle and niece. They are tabbies who look very much alike; the nick in Basil’s left ear helps people tell them apart. Student accounts published in March 2026 describe them sharing armchairs, visiting the academic office and bringing people together. There is something pleasing about a college community whose important relationships include knowing which tabby has which ear.
Then there is Magdalen’s Ozymandias, known as Ozzy, who lives with President Dinah Rose and her husband. His name was chosen partly because he was so fluffy and yet so clearly convinced of his own importance. By 2026 he had reached the pages of Country Life. For a young cat, that is quite a start.
A change in civic status
There are cats with important connections outside the colleges too. Billy, the cat belonging to my good friend Louise Upton, has recently had something of a demotion: from Lord Mayor’s cat to Deputy Lord Mayor’s cat. Louise was Lord Mayor during my year as High Sheriff of Oxfordshire; having completed her mayoral year in 2026, she now serves as the city’s Deputy Lord Mayor. I doubt Billy thinks this makes any difference to who is in charge at home.
There is a further detail I particularly like. According to the Oxford Clarion, Billy sometimes travels in a cat basket on Louise’s bicycle. I rather like the thought of the former Lord Mayor pedalling through Oxford with her cat on board. I wonder what Billy makes of the arrangement.
A different sort of belonging
What appeals to me about these cats is the way they become part of a place. Oxford can seem intimidating: ancient gates, unfamiliar words and the feeling that everybody else knows where to go and what to do. A cat crossing the quad or settling on somebody’s bag makes it feel a little more like home.
For students missing home, staff having a difficult day or visitors uncertain where they belong, such encounters can matter. The cat has no interest in your examination results or whether you have addressed somebody correctly. It may still want your chair.
Of course, a cat does not need an Oxford college to feel important. Back home in Weston-on-the-Green, our very nice village some way from Oxford, Blenheim keeps Mark and me in order without a staff profile or an office in the Lodge. He does, however, expect his nine o’clock Lick-e-Lix on time. I shall need to bear that in mind when agreeing the length of the talk.
