Introduction. A lot has been written about Siamese
cats that is in the category of mythology and personal opinions. The best
way to uncover the truth is to look for all the primary sources you can find
(e.g., original historical photos). Also, a good historian will apply what
is known about technology and science that might clear up questions of plausibility.
In this case, an understanding of photography and feline genetics is helpful.
Finally, it never hurts to ask other cat lovers and breeders their opinions,
but make sure you know how they arrived at those opinions. - C. Bird
Although Siamese cats appear to have been bred in Ancient Siam for
at least several hundred years, very little is now known about the appearance
of the native Siamese cats and how the Siamese people went about breeding
them. If the Thais ever had a formal Siamese breeding program, it appears
to have ended before the mid-20th century (see Baker, 1951). That doesn't
mean that later residents of Thailand did not sometimes own cats of the
Siamese pattern, but it does mean that Siamese cats from documented, purebred
Thai lineages dating back several hundred years do not longer exist. Possibly
they never did. Instead, randomly bred cats carrying the Siamese mutation
may have been for a few centuries merely more common in Thailand than elsewhere.
Cats of many different colors and body types can be found on the streets
of modern Thailand. Some have the kinked tails that were seen in the first
Siamese cats imported into the West, but usually in combination with very
UN-Siamese coloring.
The cat fancy as we know it today was born in England, and the early
English cat breeders imported Siamese cats during the 19th century. According
to legend, the Thais were still breeding them back then, though all the
lovely stories about cats given to British citizens by the king of Siam seem
to be unsubstantiated. For instance, there is a widely quoted tale about
the king of Siam giving a pair of Siamese to a British vice-consul, who in
turn brought them back to England and gave them to his sister Mrs. Veley.
True enough Mrs. Veley was among the first Western Siamese breeders and ample
documentation shows she owned a pair of Siamese brought back from Siam by
her brother in 1884. But Mrs. Veley later wrote that her brother had bought
at least one of her two cats for a trifling price from someone in Siam—apparently
a street vendor, not the king of Siam. One thing is for certain: cats of
Siamese "pointed" coloring could readily be found in 19th century Siam and
were described in ancient Siamese cat poems, but they were rare outside of
the Orient.
The earliest known Siamese imports were during the 1870s, but were
apparently not used for breeding. All pedigreed Siamese cats today are descended
from roughly about eleven cats that were imported into England from Siam
(Thailand) beginning in the 1880s. Some new blood was introduced later in
the 20th century, particularly after the world wars when Siamese cats were
in danger of extinction, but the original eleven were the true foundation
of the pedigreed Siamese we know today.
For details about the ancestors of our pedigreed Siamese cats, we
have to examine written records, photographs, and eye-witness testimony describing
the original English Siamese. There exist today only a few photographs of
the original cats and their first generation descendants. Many of the cats
were not photographed, or their photos did not survive to the present. Some
of the few that did survive show robust, round-cheeked cats that some people
call "appleheads." For example, take a look at this photo of Tiam O'Shian IV who was imported from the Orient
in 1886 by Mrs. Vyvyan. Bear in mind that a single photo only shows a cat
from one angle and photography can telescope certain features, make them
flatter than they are, which makes it difficult to know exactly what the
length and shape of Tiam's head and body might have been in the living cat.
Also, Tiam was an unneutered male and therefore had stud jowls. See the section
about appleheads for more about stud jowls
and head shape. We only know for sure that Tiam O'Shian IV was much bigger,
more substantial, and less extreme in type than modern show-style Siamese
are today.
Judging from the photos, there was a lot of variability in the early
cats. Here is a photo of Champion Wankee, who
was the first Siamese anywhere to become a show champion. Wankee was a very
big robust boy, yet he clearly had a long body and a broadly wedge-shaped
head with a longish muzzle. Champion Wankee was imported from Hong Kong in
1895 by Mrs. Robinson. Now if you want to see how much the camera angle can
telescope a cat's features, compare two photos of
Wankee, one taken close up at side view and another photo of Wankee that
was taken head on. Notice the little notch in the cat's ear in each photo.
It is the same cat.
Here is one of the earliest American Siamese champions, Siam de Paris. In the photo, Siam was a mature stud
and, like Tiam O'Shian IV above, had stud jowls. Note that he nonetheless
had a distinct muzzle and therefore an underlying modified wedge head. He
also had a slightly elongated body. But again like Tiam, he was a much bigger,
more substantial, more moderate-looking cat than are the modern show-style
Siamese.
For yet another look, examine this photo of Ah Choo. Ah Choo was the daughter of Tiam O'Shian III
(imported). You can see that Ah Choo was a substantially built cat with rounded
cheeks. She did not look ultra-slender or extremely elongated like today's
modern Siamese. However, note that her head was slightly long and was definitely
a modified wedge head. To get some idea what Ah Choo might have looked like
in a color photo, take a look at this photo of Sarsenstone
Teddy next to Ah Choo. Teddy was born almost 100 years later than Ah
Choo, but he is an Old-Style Siamese and the resemblance is uncanny. Now
here's what Teddy looks like in a clear close-up photo.
Possibly Ah Choo would have looked a bit different than Teddy in a close-up
photo or possibly not. It looks like she may have had a slightly longer head
than Teddy, though the width of head and bone structure of the body seem
much alike.
Here is Champion Lady Sonia, who was one
of the earliest American Siamese champions. Sonia was born in 1909, the offspring
of one of Lady Beresford's Siamese, and was probably within two generations
of an original import. You can see that Sonia had a rounded look, but if
you have a good eye for type you can see that Sonia was much more petite
than the likes of Wankee or Tiam O'Shian IV and she did seem to have a rounded
modified wedge head. She was also very cross-eyed, a trait that was more
common back then than it is now.
English breeder Mrs. Veley, who owned two of the original Siamese
cats, wrote that there were actually two body "types" of Siamese among the
imports. One type was round and robust - obviously the "applehead." The
other type, said Mrs. Veley, was "slim-line" in build and had a "marten-face."
Was she talking about cats such as Ah Choo or was she referring to some
modern-type Siamese of which there are no surviving photographs? Body type
is polygenically inherited. That means that it ranges along a continuum,
just like height in humans. There really aren't just two types of humans,
Tall and Short, and probably there weren't exactly two types of Siamese either.
There was probably a lot of variation in build, with lots of overlap. Most
Siamese cats probably fell somewhere in between very chunky and very slender,
also somewhere between very large and very small-boned, and between very
large and very small in overall size. Mrs. Veley just happened to have two
Siamese that were relatively far apart from each other in the Old-Style Siamese
continuum. Mrs. Veley said that her cat Pho was a "slim-line" kind of Siamese
and her cat Mia was a robust kind. We don't have photos of Pho and Mia, but
we do have photos of three of their kittens. The
kittens seem to be moderate-looking, round-cheeked Siamese, but they do have
modified wedge heads. That's why the mask, or dark area, on their faces forms
a rounded triangle. The face is wide at the cheeks and narrows toward the
nose.
Siamese continued to be imported during the early 20th century.
In 1919, Greta Hindley and her husband shipped a female Siamese named Puteh
from Malaya to England. Puteh was the foundation queen of Prestwick Cattery,
a cattery that lasted for decades and had a strong influence on the Siamese
breed. Puteh was described as having a very white body and a narrow head.
Presumably her head was merely relatively narrow - as compared to some
of the other early 20th century Siamese. We don't have any photos of Puteh,
but we do have lots of photos of other Prestwick cats, including Puteh's
daughter, Champion Prestwick Perak. As you
can see, Perak was a medium-sized, medium-boned Siamese with a modified wedge
head. The earliest Siamese breed standards described the wedge-shaped head
as an ideal or epitomal feature of the Siamese breed. Greta wrote that Perak
had the perfect Siamese head, at least as it was envisioned at the time.
The modern Siamese now seen in show rings have much narrower, much longer,
much more triangular heads than little Perak had. Every photo of the early
Prestwick cats shows cats that were medium in bone structure and had Perak's
type of modified wedge head. The historical records describe the Prestwick
cats as having unusually deep blue eyes and tails that were either long or
shortened and bent by kinks. Tail kinks, like crossed eyes, were another
common flaw in early Siamese cats.
The first imports into the United States occurred at least several
years prior to 1900. Some early imports may not have been recorded. Those
used for breeding appear to have come from the offspring of the English Siamese,
not directly from Siam. We know that the first American Siamese breeder's
club to survive long was the Beresford Club. This club attempted to begin
a registry and published a stud book in 1900. The registry was subsequently
inherited by the American Cat Association, the oldest pedigreed cat registry
in the United States today. The Beresford Club Stud-book and Register
of 1900 provides the first clear record of Siamese cats imported into
the United States and definitely used in a breeding program. The first two
Siamese cats recorded were Lockhaven Siam and Sally Ward, owned by Mrs. Clinton
Locke. The Beresford stud book also contains photographs of Lockhaven Siam
and his son Lockhaven Chom. Author and well known Siamese fancier Hettie
Gray Baker saw those photographs and wrote in 1951 that Siam was a robust
and broadly built cat, but that Chom resembled the finest quality Siamese
of Hettie's time (1930s-1950s). By that Hettie probably meant that Chom was
a moderate but more lightly built Siamese similar to her own cat Mikado of
Fleet (see Baker, 1951). Mrs. Robert Locke, not to be confused with Mrs.
Clinton Locke, obtained three Siamese: Calif, Siam, and
Bangkok. You can see that the cats on Mrs. Robert Locke's shoulder and
in her arms were lighter built Siamese, whereas the cat lowest in the photo
had a much more robust build. But all three were of moderate Oriental type.
There are no modern, ultra-Oriental, ultra-slender, ultra-slim Siamese
to be found in any 19th century or early 20th century photograph. The first
photographs of the extreme modern Siamese do not occur until after World
War II and they do not become frequent until the 1950s and 1960s. Numerous
books were published about Siamese cats from the 1950s onward. Although modern
Siamese were in the show rings by then, most of the show champion cats depicted
in these books are still similar to the influential early 20th century Prestwick
type of Old-Style Siamese. Some of the heavier-built Old-Style Siamese,
the ones similar to Wankee or Tiam O'Shian IV, are also consistently seen.
A photograph of one of the first cats to possess concurrently the extreme
elongation, fine bones, and narrow wedge head of the modern Siamese is seen
in a book by American Siamese breeder Marge Naples and published in 1964.
The cat is Fan-T-Cee's TC, a widely admired and much used stud. Nonetheless,
photos showing modern Siamese are not common in cat books until about 1980.
Taken together, these data strongly suggest that the moderate looking Old-Style
Siamese were predominant until the late 20th century - and that they varied
in build along a continuum from medium-sized, medium-boned, medium slender,
and moderately elongated to large-sized, large-boned, meaty, and barely elongated.
Many cats were intermediate or "mix and match" with regard to these traits.
Probably most, if not all, early Siamese had modified wedge heads with some
rounding of the cheeks and some slight elongation of head, body, tail, or
all three. But they do not seem to have been anywhere near as extremely
Oriental or as homogeneous in body type as the modern show-style Siamese.
In conclusion, the Old-Style Siamese is a pedigreed Siamese cat
that resembles moderate-looking Siamese in photos of the first Siamese imported
from Siam into England, as well as their earliest descendants, from the period
between 1880 and roughly 1945. The Old-Style Siamese varied in build, but
were much more substantial than modern Siamese and seem to have had basic
Oriental traits, such as a modified wedgeshaped head and mild elongation
of body. The modern Siamese was gradually developed from the lightest built,
most elongated Old-Style Siamese by selective breeding, a trend that first
gained significant headway in the United States in the 1950s. In 1966 Siamese
breeder Jeanne Singer wrote a new preface to the CFA breed standard for the
Siamese that favored the modern Siamese. The modern Siamese was subsequently
bred in ever-increasing numbers and became the most common type of American
Siamese in approximately 1980. But Old-Style Siamese still exist and are
bred by a few breeders.
Bibliography
We encourage Siamese fans to read the books listed in this bibliography
and any other books they can find to form their own opinions. Even the
oldest books can still be found in libraries or purchased in used book stores.
We particularly recommend the following:
1. Franklin, Sally. The Complete Siamese. New York: Howell
Book House, 1995, pg. 54, pp. 86-88 (including photographs). At this time,
this is the most objective and scholarly book dealing with the Siamese cat—many
quotes from primary historical sources.
2. Lauder, Phyllis. Siamese Cats. London: Williams & Norgate
Ltd., 1950. Examine the many photographs of early twentieth century cats,
especially the "classic" Prestwick Cattery kittens immediately prior to page
49.
3. Denlinger, Milo G. The Complete Siamese Cat. New York:
Howell Book House Inc., 1952. See especially: pg. 27 (close up head shot
of mid-twentieth century double champion Siamese), pg. 32 (nineteenth century
Siamese), pg. 49 (nineteenth century Siamese and early English breeder),
pg. 50 (champion Siamese showing emerging modern Siamese head—but no other
modern traits), pg. 57 (grand champion Siamese born in 1941), pg. 67 (close
up head shot of the regional southern United States Siamese champion in 1950),
pg. 82 (close up head shot of mid-twentieth century champion Siamese).
4. Baker, Hettie Gray. Your Siamese Cat. New York: Farrar,
Straus & Young, Inc., 1951. See especially: pg. 10, pp. 12-13, and photographs
just prior to page 85 (head and body type of the young champion queen 0f
1945).
5. Naples, Marge. This is the Siamese Cat. Jersey City, NJ:
TFH Publications, Inc., 1964. See photographs on title page and on page 12
(first fairly modern-looking Siamese in the old books), pg. 11 (close up
head shot of grand and triple champion Siamese), pg. 13 (close up head shot
of double grand and quintuple champion Siamese), pg. 14 (grand and triple
champion Siamese, interestingly enough from same cattery as cat on title
page), pg. 33 (cats from author's cattery prior to 1964 - and see next reference
#6).
6. Naples, Marge. Siamese Cats. Neptune City, NJ: TFH Publications,
Inc. 1989. Compare photographs of the cats in this book to those in the
author's 1964 book.
7. Van der Meid, Louise. Siamese Cats. Neptune City, NJ: TFH
Publications, Inc., 1978. See the many photographs of Old-Style Siamese,
including show champions, in this book by a well known and long-time photographer
of Siamese cats. Only one or two of the photographs show Siamese possessing
modern features.
8. Burns, Barbara S. All About Siamese Cats. Neptune City,
NJ: TFH Publications, Inc., 1993. On pp. 136-43, the author talks about the
change in the Siamese breed standard to favor modern type in 1966, quoting
the preface to the new standard. Also, see photographs of Old-Style Siamese
on pp. 25, 48, 61, 73, 76, 87, 99, 135, 138, 141, 149, 153.
9. Alderton, David. Cats. New York: Dorling Kindersley, Inc.,
1992. Page 18 briefly talks about the evolution of the Siamese and Persian
breeds during the twentieth century, including photographs.
10. Wade, Phyl. The Siamese Cat. London: Methuen & Co.,
Ltd., 1934. Photo between pp. 14 and 15 shows two cats imported into England
by Miss Gold, Oriental Minoo Pinklepurr (Old-Style Siamese female, pregnant)
and Oriental Nai Tabhi (Old-Style Siamese male). Between pp. 98 and 99
is a clear photograph of Champion Prestwick Perak, an Old-Style Siamese
born at the beginning of the 1920s. Between pp. 74 and 75 is a photo of
Hoveton Ruler (of Prestwick Cattery), a wonderful Old-Style Siamese stud.
Champion Prestwick Perak, Old-Style Siamese female,
1920s. She was said in her time to have the perfect
Siamese
head. Source of photo: Wade, 1934 (see refs above).
Click on photo to see larger image.
