Crimean Tom

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Stuffed cat in the National Army Museum in London believed to be Tom

Crimean Tom , also Tom or Sevastopol Tom (born approx. 1847; died December 31, 1856 ), was a domestic cat believed to have supported the British Army during the Crimean War . Lieutenant William Gair picked them up in Sevastopol , where the hangover repeatedly led the troops to food rations.

Life

During the Crimean War, on September 9, 1855, British and French troops occupied the city of Sevastopol, which they had besieged for almost a year . Lieutenant William Gair was a member of the Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards). He was subordinate to the Field Train Department as Deputy Assistant Commissary and was assigned to search for food supplies in the cellars of the houses. While on patrol, he came across a cat on a pile of garbage, surrounded by two injured people. The cat was picked up by Gair. He was estimated to be eight years and had survived the entire siege.

Gair took the cat to his department, who looked after him and named him Tom, later Crimean Tom and Sevastopol Tom. Legend has it that the officers noticed how well nourished the tomcat was and how it was getting bigger and bigger. So they began to watch the cat on its raids and followed her to a passage that was closed by a large amount of rubbish. Behind the garbage they found a secret storage room with supplies that helped feed the troops. Tom also led them to other, smaller pantries near the port. After the war ended, Gair brought Tom to England and kept him as a pet. Tom died on December 31, 1856.

Honor

A Welcome Arrival, 1855 , John Dalbiac Luard, 1857

Gair had Crimean Tom stuffed and donated it to the Royal United Services Institute , but then his trail was lost. In the 1950s, writer Faith Compton Mackenzie acquired a stuffed cat on Portobello Road identified as the Crimean Tom. She wore a leather collar with a silver pendant that read "T / Sebastopol". However, there is no definitive proof. The stuffed cat was donated to the National Army Museum in London in 1958 and has been exhibited there ever since.

Tom is also said to be the cat in the picture A Welcome Arrival 1855 by John Dalbiac Luard (1857), which shows British officers opening parcels from home. Tom's master is said to be the red-clad man in the picture, which was also exhibited by the National Army Museum. However, there is no evidence here either.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Stephen Wood: Those Terrible Gray Horses: An Illustrated History of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4728-1348-0 , pp. 81 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed April 7, 2018]).
  2. ↑ a b c Stuffed tabby cat 'Crimean Tom', 1855. Online Collection of the National Army Museum , London, accessed April 7, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Ashley Morgan: Super Cats: True Tales of Extraordinary Felines . Summersdale Publishers Limited, 2017, ISBN 978-1-78685-127-7 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed April 7, 2018]). Meet England's most heroic cats. In: BBC News . August 6, 2016, accessed April 7, 2018 .
  4. ^ A Welcome Arrival, 1855 (c), John D'Albiac Luard. National Army Museum, archived from the original on May 15, 2018 ; accessed on April 7, 2018 (English).

Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 10 ″  N , 0 ° 9 ′ 36 ″  W.