| Nelson | |
| Office: | Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office |
| Term End: | ? |
| Term Label: | In role |
| Predecessor: | Munich Mouser |
| Successor: | Peter II |
| Alongside: | the Munich Mouser (1940–1943) |
Nelson was a cat who served as the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office during the wartime coalition government as a pet of Winston Churchill. In the summer of 1940, after Churchill became the prime minister, Nelson moved from Admiralty House to 10 Downing Street, where he had a rivalry with his predecessor: Neville Chamberlain's cat, the Munich Mouser.
Winston Churchill decided to adopt Nelson, a black[1] stray, when he witnessed him chasing off a "huge dog" from Admiralty House, London.[2] Impressed by his bravery, Churchill named the cat after the British admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson.[3] Following Churchill's appointment as prime minister in 1940, Nelson moved into 10 Downing Street from Admiralty House sometime during the summer.[4] [5] [6] Opponents of Churchill speculated that he would not bring Nelson to Downing Street, suggesting that Churchill did not like cats; this was refuted by Churchill's friends as a "gross aspersion".[7] Commenters also wondered whether Nelson and the previous prime minister Neville Chamberlain's cat, nicknamed the Munich Mouser, would get along:
The cats did not take a liking to one another, with the rivalry between the pair later compared with that of the 21st-century mousers Larry and Palmerston.[8] Churchill would reportedly regularly entertain guests with stories of Nelson's bravery.
During the Christmas season of 1941 the United States gifted Churchill a large number of items, including catnip for Nelson.[9] [10] [11] In February 1942 Quentin Reynolds, an American journalist, reported that Nelson had demonstrated his "faithfulness" to Churchill by jumping into his lap when called; Churchill's daughter Mary claimed that "Nelson isn't really that faithful", and "he [was] only being nice" to Churchill because they were to have salmon for lunch.[12] Reynolds also described a dinner with the Churchills and Nelson in a book published that year, at which Churchill recited parts of Shakespeare's Hamlet.[13] [14] On 2 May 1944, at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference, Nelson was trapped in a fridge whilst attempting to get "an extra helping of milk",[15] but was soon released unharmed.[16] During meetings with Churchill's war cabinet, Nelson would sit close to Churchill, acting as a "prime ministerial hot water bottle"; the prime minister was reported to have mentioned this fact to Rab Butler, stating that through his acts Nelson "save[d] fuel and power", and thereby aided the war effort.