Palmerston

Palmerston was a black-and-white cat adopted from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in April 2016 who served as Chief Mouser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office — his full formal title was "Chief Mouser of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office," the diplomatic counterpart to Larry's role at Downing Street. He was named after the 19th-century Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, a fitting tribute for a cat tasked with protecting Britain's diplomatic headquarters on King Charles Street. Palmerston's tenure was distinguished above all by his relationship — or rather, rivalry — with Larry the Downing Street cat. The two engaged in several documented confrontations on Whitehall and Downing Street, captured by the assembled press corps with considerable delight. One particularly well-photographed encounter in 2016 saw Palmerston stalking Larry down Downing Street; tabloid headlines treated each incident as a diplomatic crisis. Foreign Office staff reported that Palmerston took his mousing duties far more seriously than Larry, and was considerably more aggressive with intruders — both rodent and political. He retired in August 2020, relocating to the countryside with an FCO staff member, though he subsequently returned to diplomatic service as a companion animal in Bermuda.