As their name suggests, Siamese cats are native to Siam in Thailand, where the breed was considered sacred. At the time, they were reserved for Buddhist monks and members of the royal elite. A manuscript from 1350, discovered in Ayutthaya, describes a fair-coated cat with a black face and ears, black legs and a black tail. Other very old manuscripts show that Siameses lived in the temples and palaces of 14th century Asia. There is even one legend that says their squint comes from when they were responsible for surveilling the sacred vases - it is said that after staring at these vases for so long, they ended up squinting!
The Siamese first appeared in Britain in the middle of the 19th century. A consul general named Owen Gould, who was heading up a political business mission in Siam at the time, discovered a royal cattery on one of his visits, where he found many beautiful pointed felines. He fell under their spell, bribed one of the palace servants to give him two kittens and took them back to Britain with him. The following year, a Frenchman followed suit! A minister named Auguste Pavie made a trip to Asia and himself brought back two of these beautiful cats, which later formed a couple.
Unfortunately, despite the efforts of both travellers, the cats fell ill and withered, leading people to believe that the breed was too fragile. In spite of these failures, in 1920, breeders began successfully mating the breed. The Siamese became so popular that it ended up at risk of disappearing again - this time because breeders had started making inadequate pairings, resorting to in-breeding. It wasn’t until 1932 that radical measures were taken and a standard was established, allowing this magnificent cat to become the exceptional breed we know today.
