Humphrey

Humphrey was a black-and-white stray who wandered into 10 Downing Street in 1989 and stayed to become one of Britain's most famous official cats, holding the title of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. Named after the scheming civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby from the sitcom "Yes Minister", he served under Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair, with his modest food allowance paid from public funds. Humphrey became a genuine national personality, his comings and goings reported in the press as if he were a member of staff. He weathered a tabloid scandal in 1994 when he was wrongly accused of killing a family of robins, and another in 1995 when he disappeared for three months (he had been quietly living at a nearby college). His retirement in 1997, shortly after the Blairs moved in, prompted such intense speculation that Downing Street was forced to release photographs of a healthy Humphrey to prove he had not been done away with. He lived out his final years in suburban anonymity and died in 2006.