The first SPCA or humane society was set up by Dublin-born landowner Richard "Humanity" Martin who campaigned for a preventive act to protect animals from cruelty and unjust treatment. The act was passed by the British Parliament in 1822. It has since been followed by animal protection acts which extend or modify the degree of protection offered to animals.

In 1824, the world’s first SPCA was formed in London and in 1837 this became the RSPCA under the royal patronage of Queen Victoria. It became the model for many others around the world. In 1845, the French Societé Protectrice des Animaux was formed. America followed somewhat later with the American SPCA in 1866 and the American Humane Association in 1877.

Battersea Dogs Home was set up in 1860 as the "Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs" by Mary Tealby in Holloway, London, moving to Battersea in 1871. In the 1880s and 1890s, it sometimes took in 35,000 to 42,000 stray and unwanted dogs in a single year, housing them in communal pens. While Battersea Dogs' Home is best associated with dogs, in 1883 it also became involved with rescuing and rehoming cats.

In 1897, "Our Dumb Friends' League" was founded. Within a year it had 22 branches and by 1900 had a horse ambulance. In 1906 an animal hospital was opened to provide veterinary care for pets belonging to the poor. In 1912, The League launched the "Blue Cross Fund" to assist animals during the Balkan War. In 1950, Our Dumb Friends' League officially changed its name to The Blue Cross, being the animals' equivalent of the Red Cross. As well as animal hospitals, it now has adoption centres.

At the end of the 1800s and start of the 1900s, the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats collected strays in its horse drawn van. The huge number of unwanted cats meant that most had to be destroyed within 24 hours. Many were already beyond saving due to starvation, disease or injury and these were destroyed at once. The London Institution for Cats also provided free medical care to cats whose owners could not afford the attention of a vet and a poster from 1910 depicted a cat receiving dental attention. The service was free to the poor and apparently no gratuities were allowed. The Institution's "Home For Lost And Starving Cats" was located in Ferdinand Street, Camden Town, London; posters depicted its staff in formal nurses' uniforms.

Writing in 1903, Frances Simpson mentioned a number of societies which rescued cats. One such society was located at Gordon Cottage at Argyle Road, Hammersmith and the other was the London Institution for Lost and Starving Cats at Ferdinand Street, Camden Town. The aims of both were very similar: To receive and collect homeless diseased cats and painlessly destroy them; To provide a temporary home for lost cats; To board cats at a moderate weekly fee

The Camden Town Institution to which HM the Queen had graciously given Her Patronage, was founded by Mrs Morgan in 1896. It received 300 cats per week on average. The sorry state that the cats were in meant that every day, "several wretched cats" were found to be beyond help and had to be destroyed on admission while 80% of cats were destroyed within 24 hours. Many would have been admitted with distemper, others would quite simply have been starving. Members of the public could also take their cats there for euthanasia and Simpson wrote "No charge is made to the poor and only 1s 6d for a painless death in the lethal chamber is asked from those who can afford this most merciful mode of destroying life." (the lethal box was a small air-tight container into which the cat was put along with a chloroform-soaked rag or sponge, occasionally other vapours might be used). The dead cats were cremated at the Battersea Dogs home, at a cost of 3d per body. A motorcar was employed to go round and collect stray cats and would call at any house if due notice was given to the manageress. In Ireland there was a Cats’ Home established 16 years ago (1903 - 16) by Miss Swifte in Dublin.

For small shelters and individuals without the room for a large lethal box, or for breeders who sometimes had to dispose of surplus kittens or sick cats, small lethal boxes were required. The simplest, for very young or sick kittens, was an airtight biscuit tin in which a chloroform-soaked rag was placed. Simpson described a commercially available lethal box in her chapter on building a cattery: "Mr Ward, the well-known feline specialist, has patented a lethal box of more moderate dimensions. Mr Ward, not yet having a description of it, kindly writes the description as follows:- "The box inside is 15 inches by 12 inches by 12 inches. A sheet of glass is inserted in the lid, so that the operator may watch the process. The vapour - coal-gas passed through chloroform - enters through a tube at end. Two minutes is sufficient time." Fanciers, I think, will agree that this simple peace-giving box is not among the least of Mr Ward's kindly ministrations to the cat he loves so well. Few amongst as can bear to see unmoved the terrible last pains of a pet who in its days of health delighted us with its beauty."

At the time, there were an estimated three quarters of a million homeless cats in London. This numbers were swollen in the summer months when pet cats were put out to fend for themselves while their owners went on holiday. Simpson wrote, "It is during the summer months when householders leave town for their holidays, that poor pussy is forsaken and forgotten and, no provision being made for her, she is forced to take to the streets, where she seeks in vain to stalk the wily London sparrow or pick up any scraps from the gutter."

Holiday boarding was available for those who cared enough - and Simpson noted that the poorer classes were more likely to make arrangements for boarding than were their social superiors! At the Battersea Home for Lost Dogs there were also special arrangements for stray cats and at a very small charge per week cats could be taken in to board. Frances Simpson suggested that some of the many "distressed ladies", particularly those living in the country, could run boarding catteries as a means of having an income and providing a service to cat fanciers needing long-term boarding for their cats: "To dwellers in any of our large cities the sojourn in some country place would come as a boon and a blessing"

During the First World War, animal welfare pioneer Maria Dickin worked to improve the dreadful state of animal health in the Whitechapel area of London. Dickin wanted to open a clinic where East Enders living in poverty could receive free treatment for their sick and injured animals. She opened her free dispensary in 1917 and within 6 years she had her first horse-drawn clinic.

In America, the plight of stray cats was equally desperate. In New York City an estimated 60,000 stray cats subsisted on garbage and vermin. In 1874, an animal shelter (not restricted to cats) was founded in Philadelphia to bring relief to dogs, cats and other unfortunate creatures and to offer a painless death. In 1889 this became the Morris Refuge for Homeless and Suffering Animals. This engraving from 1875 shows "Mrs Goodman's Hospital For Cats, New York".

In Boston, in 1884, the Ellen M Gifford Sheltering Home For Animals was founded following a bequest from Miss Gifford. "If only the waifs, the strays, the sick, the abused would be sure to get entrance to the home, and anybody could feel at liberty to bring in a starved or ill-treated animal and have it cared for without pay, my object would be attained.". According to a Miss Winslow (Helen Winslow was author of "Concerning Cats" in 1900), writing to Frances Simpson, there were several cat asylums and refuges in the American Far West and a Sheltering Home in Brighton, Massachusetts. In 1901 Mrs Leland Norton founded a Cat Refuge in Chicago.

American Helen M Winslow was the editor of "The Club Woman" and the author of "Concerning Cats" (published 1900), a book on cats and the cat fancy in America. In her summary of cats in England, Winslow wrote "England was the first […] to care for lost and deserted cats and dogs. At Battersea there is a Temporary Home for both these unfortunates, where between twenty and twenty-five thousand dogs and cats are sheltered and fed. The objects of this home, which is supported entirely by voluntary subscriptions, are to restore lost pets to their owners, to find suitable homes for unclaimed cats and dogs, and to painlessly destroy useless and diseased ones. There is a commodious cat’s house where pets may be boarded during their owner’s absence; and a separate house where lost and deserted felines are sheltered, fed, and kindly tended." Winslow elaborated on American cat refuges (prior to 1900) and some other European countries' arrangements in a later chapter of the book, "Concerning Cat Hospitals And Refuges":-

At comparatively frequent intervals we read of some woman, historic or modern, who has left an annuity (as the Duchess of Richmond, "La Belle Stewart") for the care of her pet cats; now and then a man provides for them in his will, as Lord Chesterfield, for instance, who left a permanent pension for his cats and their descendants. But I find only one who has endowed a home for them and given it sufficient means to support the strays and waifs who reach its shelter.

Early in the eighties, Captain Nathan Appleton, of Boston (a brother of the poet Longfellow’s wife, and of Thomas Appleton, the celebrated wit), returned from a stay in London with a new idea, that of founding some sort of a refuge, or hospital, for sick or stray cats and dogs. He had visited Battersea, and been deeply impressed with the need of a shelter for small and friendless domestic animals. At Battersea there is an institution similar to the one the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York have at East 120th Street, where stray animals may be sent and kept for a few days awaiting the possible appearance of a claimant or owner; at the end of which time the animals are placed in the "lethal chamber," where they die instantly and painlessly by asphyxiation. In Boston, the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have no such refuge or pound, but in place of it keep one or two men whose business it is to go wherever sent and "mercifully put to death" the superfluous, maimed, or sick animals that shall be given them.

Captain Appleton’s idea, however, was something entirely different from this. These creatures, he argued, have a right to their lives and the pursuit of happiness after their own fashion, and he proposed to help them to enjoy that right. He appealed to a few sympathetic friends and gave two or three acres of land from his own estate, near "Nonantum Hill," where the Apostle Eliot preached to the Indians, and where his iodine springs are located. He had raised a thousand or two dollars and planned a structure of some kind to shelter stray dogs and cats, when the good angel that attends our household pets guided him to the lawyer who had charge of the estates of Miss Ellen M. Gifford, of New Haven, Ct. "I think I can help you," said the lawyer. But he would say nothing more at that time. A few weeks later, Captain Appleton was sent for. Miss Gifford had become deeply interested in the project, and after making more inquiries, gave the proposed home some twenty-five thousand dollars, adding to this amount afterward and providing for the institution in her will. It has already had over one hundred thousand dollars from Miss Gifford’s estates, and it is so well endowed and well managed that it is self-supporting.

The Ellen M. Gifford Sheltering Home for Animals is situated near the Brookline edge of the Brighton district in Boston. In fact, the residential portion of aristocratic Brookline is so fast creeping up to it that the whole six acres of the institution will doubtless soon be disposed of at a very handsome profit, while the dogs and cats will retire to a more remote district to "live on the interest of their money." The main building is a small but handsome brick affair, facing on Lake Street. This is the home of the superintendent, and contains, besides, the offices of the establishment. Over the office is a tablet with this inscription, taken from a letter of Miss Gifford’s about the time the home was opened - "If only the waifs, the strays, the sick, the abused, would be sure to get entrance to the home, and anybody could feel at liberty to bring in a starved or ill-treated animal and have it cared for without pay, my object would be obtained. March 27, 1884."

The superintendent is a lover of animals as well as a good business manager, and his work is in line with the sentence just quoted. Any one wanting a cat or a dog, and who can promise it a good home, may apply there. But Mr. Perkins does not take the word of a stranger at random. He investigates their circumstances and character, and never gives away an animal unless he can be reasonably sure of its going to a good home. For instance, he once received an application from one man for six cats. The wholesale element in the order made him slightly suspicious, and he immediately drove to Boston, where he found that his would-be customer owned a big granary overrun with mice. He sent the six cats, and two weeks later went to see how they were getting on, when he found them living happily in a big grain-loft, fat and contented as the most devoted Sultan of Egypt could have asked.

None but street cats and stray dogs, homeless waifs, ill-treated and half starved, are received at this home. Occasionally, some family desiring to get rid of the animal they have petted for months, perhaps years, will send it over to the Sheltering Home. But if Mr. Perkins can find where it came from he promptly returns it, for even this place, capable of comfortably housing a hundred cats and as many dogs, cannot accommodate all the unfortunates that are picked up in the streets of Boston. The accommodations, too, while they are comfortable and even luxurious for the poor creatures that have hitherto slept on ash-barrels and stone flaggings, are unfit for household pets that have slept on cushions, soft rugs, and milady’s bed.

There is a dog-house and a cat-house, sufficiently far apart that the occupants of one need not be disturbed by those of the other. In the dog-house there are rows of pens on each side of the middle aisle, in which from one to four or five dogs, according to size, are kept when indoors. These are of all sorts, colors, dispositions, and sizes, ranging from pugs to St. Bernards, terriers to mastiffs. There are few purely bred dogs, although there are many intelligent and really handsome ones. The dogs are allowed to run in the big yard that opens out from their house at certain hours of the day; but the cats’ yards are open to them all day and night. All yards and runs are enclosed with wire netting, and the cat­house has partitions of the same. All around the sides of the cat-house are shelves or bunks, which are kept supplied with clean hay, for their beds. Here one may see cats of every color and assorted sizes, contentedly curled up in their nests, while their companions sit blinking in the sun, or run out in the yards. Cooked meat, crackers and milk, and dishes of fresh water are kept where they can get at them. The cats all look plump and well fed, and, indeed, the ordinary street cat must feel that his lines have fallen in pleasant places.

Not so, however, with pet cats who may be housed there. They miss the companionship of people, and the household belongings to which they have been accustomed. Sometimes it is really pathetic to see one of these cast-off pets climb up the wire netting and plainly beg the visitor to take him away from that strange place, and gives him such a home as he has been used to. In the superintendent’s house there is usually a good cat or two of this sort, as he is apt to test a well-bred [pedigree type] cat before giving him away.

Somewhat similar, and even older than the Ellen Gifford Sheltering Home, is the Morris Refuge of Philadelphia. This institution, whose motto is "The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works," was first established in May, 1874, by Miss Elizabeth Morris and other ladies who took an interest in the protection of suffering animals. It does not limit its tender mercies to cats and dogs, but cares for every suffering animal. It differs from the Ellen Gifford Home chiefly in the fact that, while the latter is a home for stray cats and dogs, the Morris Refuge has for its object the care for and disposal of suffering animals of all sorts. In a word, it brings relief to most of these unfortunate creatures by means of a swift and painless death.

It was first known as the City Refuge, although it was never maintained by the city. In January, 1889, it was reorganized and incorporated as the "Morris Refuge for Homeless and Suffering Animals." It is supported by private contributions, and is under the supervision of Miss Morris and a corps of kind-hearted ladies of Philadelphia. A wagon is kept at the home to respond to calls, and visits any residence where suffering animals may need attention. The agent of the society lives at the refuge with his family, and receives animals at any time. When notice is received of an animal hurt or suffering, he sends after it. Chloroform is invariably taken along, in order that, if expedient, the creature may be put out of its agony at once. This refuge is at 1242 Lombard Street, and there is a temporary home where dogs are boarded at 923 South 11th Street.

In 1895, out of 23,067 animals coming under the care of the association, 19,672 were cats. In 1896, there were 24,037 animals relieved and disposed of, while the superintendent answered 230 police calls. Good homes are found for both dogs and cats, but not until the agent is sure that they will be kindly treated. In Miss Morris’s eighth annual report she says:

Lady Marcus Beresford has succeeded in establishing and endowing a home for cats in Englefield Green, Windsor Park. She has made a specialty of Angoras, and her collection is famous. Queen Victoria and her daughters take a deep interest, not alone in finely bred cats, but in poor and homeless waifs as well. Her Royal Highness, in fact, took pains to write the London S. P. C. A. some years ago, saying she would be very glad to have them do something for the safety and protection of cats, "which are so generally misunderstood and grossly ill-treated." She herself sets a good example in this respect, and when her courts remove from one royal residence to another, her cats are taken with her.

There is a movement in Paris, too, to provide for sick and homeless cats as well as dogs. Two English ladies have founded a hospital near Asnières, where ailing pets can be tended in illness, or boarded for about ten cents a day; and very well cared for their pensioners are. There is also a charity ward where pauper patients are received and tended carefully, and afterward sold or given away to reliable people. Oddly, this sort of charity was begun by Mademoiselle Claude Bernard, the daughter of the great scientist who, it is said, tortured more living creatures to death than any other. Vivisection became a passion with him, but Mademoiselle Bernard is atoning for her father’s cruelty by a singular devotion to animals, and none are turned from her gates.

This is the way they do it in Cairo even now, according to Monsieur Prisse d’Avennes, the distinguished Egyptologist : - "The Sultan, El Daher Beybars, who reigned in Egypt and Syria toward 658 of the Hegira (1260 A.D.) and is compared by William of Tripoli to Nero in wickedness, and to Caesar in bravery, had a peculiar affection for cats. At his death, he left a garden, ‘Gheyt-el-Quoltah’ (the cats’ orchard), situated near his mosque outside Cairo, for the support of homeless cats. Subsequently the field was sold and resold several times by the administrator and purchasers. In consequence of a series of dilapidations it now produces a nominal rent of fifteen piastres a year, which with certain other legacies is appropriated to the maintenance of cats. The Kadi, who is the official administrator of all pious and charitable bequests, ordains that at the hour of afternoon prayer, between noon and sunset, a daily distribution of animals’ entrails and refuse meat from the butchers’ stalls, chopped up together, shall be made to the cats of the neighborhood. This takes place in the outer court of the ‘Mehkemeh,’ or tribunal, and a curious spectacle may then be seen. At this hour all the terraces near the Mehkemeh are crowded with cats; they come jumping from house to house across the narrow Cairo streets, hurrying for their share: they slide down walls and glide into the court, where they dispute, with great tenacity and much growling, the scanty meal so sadly out of proportion to the number of guests. The old ones clear, the food in a moment; the young ones and the newcomers, too timid to fight for their chance, must content themselves with licking the ground. Those wanting to get rid of cats take them there and deposit them. I have seen whole baskets of kittens deposited in the court, greatly to the annoyance of the neighbors."

There are similar customs in Italy and Switzerland. In Geneva cats prowl about the streets like dogs at Constantinople. The people charge themselves with their maintenance, and feed the cats who come to their doors at the same hour every day for their meals. In Florence, a cloister near St. Lorenzo’s Church serves as a refuge for cats. It is an ancient and curious institution, but I am unable to find whether it is maintained by the city or by private charities. There are specimens of all colors, sizes, and kinds, and any one who wants a cat has but to go there and ask for it. On the other hand, the owner of a cat who is unable or unwilling to keep it may take it there, where it is fed and well treated. In Rome, they have a commendable system of caring for their cats. At a certain hour butchers’ men drive through the city, with carts well stocked with cat’s meat. They utter a peculiar cry which the cats recognize, and come hurrying out of the houses for their allowances, which are paid for by the owners at a certain rate per month.

In Boston, during the summer of 1895, a firm of butchers took subscriptions from philanthropic citizens, and raised enough to defray the expenses of feeding the cats on the Back Bay, - where, in spite of the fact that the citizens are all wealthy and supposedly humane, there are more starving cats than elsewhere in the city. But the experiment has not been repeated.

Hospitals for sick animals are no new thing, but a really comfortable home for cats is an enterprise in which many a woman who now asks despondently what she can do in this overcrowded world to earn a living, might find pleasant and profitable. A most worthy charity is that of the Animal Rescue League in Boston, which was started by Mrs. Anna Harris Smith in 1899. She put a call in the newspapers, asking those who were interested in the subject to attend a meeting and form a league for the protection and care of lost or deserted pets. The response was immediate and generous. The Animal Rescue League was formed with several hundred members, and in a short time the house at 68 Carver

Street was rented, and a man and his wife put in charge. Here are brought both cats and dogs from all parts of Boston and the suburbs, where they are sure of kind treatment and care. If they are diseased they are immediately put out of existence by means of the lethal chamber; otherwise they are kept for a few days in order that they may be claimed by their owners if lost, or have homes found for them whenever it is possible. During the first year over two thousand cats were cared for, and several hundred dogs. This home is maintained by voluntary contributions and by the annual dues of subscribers. These are one dollar a year for associate members and five dollars for active members. It is an excellent charity, and one that may well be emulated in other cities.

There are several cat asylums and refuges in the Far West, and certainly a few more such institutions as the Sheltering Home at Brighton, Mass., or the Morris Refuge would be a credit to a country. How better than by applying it to our cats can we demonstrate the truth of Solomon’s maxim, "A merciful man is merciful to his beast"?

When I think of homeless cats sad little pictures pass one after another through my mind. A scrawny mother cat lying on the edge of a filthy snowbank in an alley, hugging a kitten up to her breasts with her arm. The kitten is dead, but she will not believe it. She licks the wet little body all over and purrs her cat lullaby, "T-r-r, t-r-r!" A large, black tom, bewildered but dignified, making his slow way along Broadway in the theater district. He walks unevenly, one paw held up; it is swollen to the size of three. With his white spats and necktie he might be a sick old actor out of a job. He looks up into the faces of the matinee crowds as if he would like to tell someone about it, but no one notices him, and he hobbles into a corner and lays himself resignedly down.

The cellar of a closed restaurant, with eyes peering out of the darkness, the eyes of abandoned cats. There must be twenty of them, and two dead kittens lie in a pool of water on the floor. The eyes gleam with terror and hunger, for there was a great noise days ago in the restaurant, trucks rumbling up to the door where the cook used to toss them scraps, and then the cellar door slammed on them, and they have been here ever since, with no scraps. Still it is home, and how the starved creatures dodge and flee from the woman who crawls down the steps to save them.

Midnight on Rivington Street, New York City. It is a sleety night, and most of the people have gone indoors. So the cats come out. Scores upon scores of them, old and young, mostly bony and mangy, creeping among the garbage cans and plunging their claws into the coverless ones, fighting over a fish head or the remains of a sandwich.

A summer station for unwanted cats in Seward Park, New York. Tiers of cages, full of cats, cats of all colours and sizes and ages, handsome cats, hideous cats, cowering cats, bristling cats. More cats arriving, in baskets or clutched in the bringers' hands. Some of the people, reluctant to have any part in destroying an animal, set their cats down on the pavement and hasten away, and the old man in charge picks them up and carries them to cages. A shabby young man of the agitator type loiters by, looks at the cats, stops.

"What you going to do with these cats?" he asks. The old man has his hands full with an injured cat, and a woman who has been looking at the cages answers. "I suppose most of them will be put into the gas chamber," she says. "What else can be done with so many cats? Who has homes for them?"

"A pretty country, that can't even take care of the cats," the boy grumbles.

"That's what we get all the time," the attendant observes to the woman. "Tryin' to do the best we can with the an'mals, an' lotta folks thinks we're cruel."

Figures are printed telling how many homeless cats there are in this or that city, in this country, in the world. They are guesses; nobody knows. I read that the ASPCA estimated that there were 1,500,000 cats in Greater New York, and that 1,000,000 had homes, 500,000 were strays. But I do not believe that two thirds of the cat population have homes. I think it is the other way around. The homeless cats are not all miserable. Some of them have their moments. It is a great moment in the day of a score of Greenwich Village cats when Dan Fratini, a big-hearted truck-driver, brings them the dinner of broken meats that he has begged from restaurants. He spreads a newspaper in a convenient corner, sets out dinner, and calls. He never has to call more than once; the guests know the hour.

Dan is one of a good many New York people who have a heart for the homeless cat. There is a little stenographer who always spends an hour, after her day's work is done, in looking for strays in the deserted canyons of the financial district, where there is poor picking for cats. Those she finds she takes to an animal refuge, and then she goes to her late dinner. She has done her good deed for the day. Dan and the stenographer represent the two schools into which the friends of cats are divided. One school believes in gathering up homeless cats and taking them to some humane agency, to be placed in homes if possible, and if not to be mercifully destroyed. The other school thinks that if they are fed they can take care of themselves on the street. But it is to be feared that the samaritans of this school, intending to be kind, are adding to the problem of the homeless cat. The cats they keep alive and at liberty inevitably breed, and so there are more and more strays.

Cats sometimes form colonies and flourish for a time. There was once a handsome tribe living among the rocks in a vacant lot in the upper end of Manhattan. The patriarch of the colony was black and white, and the kittens born there were all black and white, no matter what the colour of the cats that moved in. Tenants in a neighbouring apartment house fed them, and they looked very prosperous, lying on the rocks on a warm afternoon. Then builders came to blast for a new apartment house, and the colony broke up in terror. There is no security for the unowned cat.

Britain’s oldest "cats only" charity was the Cats Protection League, now re-branded as "Cats Protection". Its aims were to rescue, rehabilitate and rehome unwanted cats and to educate cat owners on proper care of their pets. Population control has long been one of the CPL’s aims. Early on this was through persuading cat owners to have surplus or unwanted kittens destroyed (by a vet) at birth rather than letting them stray and to keep male cats, rather than females, as this would reduce the number of breeding cats around. In more modern times, thanks to modern veterinary care, this has changed to a message of neutering though the underlying message of population control is unchanged.

Early CPL volunteers faced ridicule or incredulity. Cats were not considered worthy of protection in the same way as dogs and were often considered little better than semi-wild hangers on! The CPL was viewed as little more than a society of crazy cat-loving old ladies! However, the society persevered in their work and messages and had grown to over 200 branches by 2003.

Well into the 1960s, the CPL ran the Tailwavers Club to help bombed out cats after the Second World War. In 1938, they had advised that it would be necessary to put cats to sleep if air raids began, to save the cats from mutilation and pain. Cat owners were urged to decide then whether to do so, in order that there was no hesitation or loss of time if the danger was to materialise.

Pets face great hardship during wartime. Pets were not allowed into public air raid shelters; some were evacuated, but many were put to sleep or lost their homes in bombing raids. Cats were not allowed on the transport provided by authorities during compulsory evacuation. All the owners could do was leave a day’s food and water for the cat and advise the police or a local animal welfare authority that there was a cat in the house. Many were destroyed. Others became strays or joined feral colonies. A few survived to be reunited with returning families and other lucky survivors were rescued and rehomed.

Realising that many pet owners would rather risk their lives than leave their pets, the National Air Raid Precautions for Animals (NARPAC) was set up and, among other things, gave advice on building a gas proof kennel from a large wooden box covered in a wet blanket! Those with gardens took their cats into the air raid shelters they dug there. There are reports of cats warning their families of impending bombs by taking refuge in the shelter before any warning was sounded. In May 1942, dozens of cats fled Exeter, Devon shortly before it was devastated by bombs. One tragedy of the war was that many cats survived when their owners did not.

These days Tailwavers has gone and Cats Protection (the modern name of the CPL) has other initiatives. One is its junior section which produces a junior newsletter. CP also provides teaching packs for schools. There is also a wide variety of cat care leaflets, including basic cat care information in a variety of languages. The CPL now has over 200 branches and a number of HQ run shelters.

Some of the societies were devoted to tackling cruelty while others provided medical care at reduced cost. A third group tackled specific areas of cat welfare.

The Feline Advisory Bureau (FAB) is concerned primarily with improving veterinary understanding. It also runs a cattery "excellence" register. It funds various veterinary work, including scholarships, and has produced manuals on building a FAB-approved cattery and on setting up and running cat rescue shelters. FAB ("We Know About Cats") provides a wealth of information to breeders, rescuers, veterinary staff and other professionals and volunteers working with cats – medical, genetics, behavioural etc.

The Cat Action Trust and the Original Cat Action Trust, both founded in 1977 (they were initially a single society), deals exclusively with feral cats – control through neutering, colony management (and relocation in some cases) and advising on providing shelter and food for managed colonies as well as taming and rehoming feral kittens young enough to be tamed. It pioneered the Trap-Neuter-Release method of feral cat control, noting that managed neutered colonies tended to remain numerically stable and dissuaded other ferals from entering the area.

In the 1980s "Cats In Industry" was a Sheffield-based charity dedicated to improving the conditions of an estimated half a million nominally homeless cats "working" as unofficial mousers at factories throughout Britain. The lucky ones were fed by cat-loving employees, but most lived in appalling neglect, unfed and in dirty and dangerous conditions. Few received veterinary care and many were ferals attracted to canteen scraps and the vermin such scraps attracted. Hammond lobbied factory managers to set up proper feeding stations for the cats and to provide veterinary care and vaccinations. Where that failed, she sought individual employees to adopt and take home the tamer cats.

Cats In Industry soon had several small shelters in places such as Middlesbrough, Southampton and South Wales, fundraising sales, food collections, appeals on behalf of working cats and around 500 subscribers. A strong campaigner for neutering, she realised that some factories were simply not going to stump up the £16 neutering fee. An alternative was to add contraceptives to the cats’ food.

Cats In Industry no longer exists. During the 1990s, there were fewer cats on industrial premises due to health and safety concerns. British heavy industry was also in decline. Some of the major charities were now helping to neuter the cats – domestic and feral – though many factories had the cats removed by pest controllers. A few premises and postal sorting offices still tolerate a few cats (but not ferals) and these are generally cared for by volunteers on the staff.

As well as the main charities there are many other privately run groups, not all of which have charitable status. Though most have admirable aims and many have dedicated volunteers and good accommodation, others operate out of overcrowded or dilapidated conditions and do themselves – and the cats – no favours. Government regulations in the 2000s aims to eliminate those which keep cats in squalid conditions.

The local cat rescue groups include those such Colchester Cat Rescue (Essex), Avon Cat Rescue (Warwickshire), SNIP (Society for Neutering Islington’s Pussies, London) and the Moggery (Bristol). Those without charity status rely on donations and membership fees or sponsorship and are often in frequent danger of over-stretching their limited funds due to the sheer numbers of cats needing help or homes in their areas.

There are also individuals who foster and rehome cats from their own homes. Others specialise in hand-rearing orphan kittens or taming feral kittens. Some are connected to shelters, others work entirely independently. Those who work responsibly know their financial and space limits and help however many cats they can, but a few allow themselves to become overrun or are "cat collectors" operating under the guise of rescuers.

As well as the actual rescuers, a number of fundraising organisations exist solely to raise funds for various charities and rescue groups. Some of these are tied to a particular shelter ("Friends of" groups) while others divide what they raise among local shelters. A few shelters sponsor individual projects such as Chelmsford CPL’s aid to one of its members in setting up a cat neutering program in Kusadasi, Turkey.

If you want to donate to, help or contact a cat-related organisation, first check in local phone directories to see which ones are in your area. Most readily accept financial donations, but for other queries you should contact the group concerned. If you want to help one specific type of cat organisation (e.g. one involved in feral cat work), check the adverts in the back of your country’s main cat or pet magazines and check your local newspapers. Many cat or pet magazines list HQ numbers for larger organisations and sometimes those overseas. Cat shows and animal welfare exhibitions are other good places to get contact details.

Many local groups advertise on noticeboards for help or homes – community notieboards, vet clinic noticeboards and local libraries are good places to find information.