A cat with 'wings' became a strange Leeds sensation

Bury the Leeds #20

Longstaff the farmer was shifting some bales in Armley when he first saw it.

It sure looked like a cat, but confusing matters were the two bird-like wings settled upon its furry back.

The next day, the farmer brought the alleged cat-with-wings to his local pub, the Oak Inn on Silver Royd Hill.

One man reckoned it was a cross between a cat and an owl. Another suspected that it belonged to the flying fox species and a person simply said it was an example of the Italian cat.

Longstaff sold it to the pub landlord for £1.

Later that afternoon, the cat had another owner, a navvy named Benjamin Martin. He’d been drinking there and spotted a business opportunity.

In the summer of 1893, Thomas Bessie, the ‘winged’ cat, became a celebrity in Leeds.

People flocked to Armley from all over the city to have a point and a gawk, for a small fee, of course.

The Armley and Wortley News wrote:

“The animal is decidedly of the cat tribe as far as its head, neck, body and legs are concerned but it is nearly twice as long as the ordinary specimen.

“Its tail commences like a cat’s but ends something like that of a fox. The greatest curiosity about it is that on each side of the upper part of its back, there is a wing composed of skin or fleshy substance and covered with the same kind of fur as its body.

“The wings appear altogether insufficient to carry such a heavy body in the air”.

Cat of cats

A Yorkshire Evening Post reporter went to the home of the Martins at 298 Tong Road (roughly where the Aldi is today).

He desperately wanted to meet this “cat of cats, phenomenal pussy, Icarus of the feline race”.

He noted that even in the palmy days of ancient Egypt, cats didn’t deviate too much from their present form. They were just cats and did nothing extraordinary, until now.

In the corner of a room in the Armley terrace stood a large rabbit hutch and run. Inside was the famous Thomas Bessie.

This drawing of the cat was published in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

The attraction had proved extremely popular and the Martins were raking it in. However, the cat was fed up with all the attention.

Thomas Bessie was sleeping with one eye open when the reporter approached.

The cat “shot a baleful gleam” at him. He concluded, correctly, that his presence was not welcome.

“It was as if the cat thought ‘Here comes another tormentor,’ and he was right if I interpreted him correctly. We did torment him. It is one of the penalties of eccentricity or genius”.

Mrs Martin poked the poor cat with a stick to wake him up properly.

In response, Thomas Bessie “clutched and clawed” at the stick with anger.

A flying machine

The reporter studied the biology of the cat and judged him to be a magnificent, if a touch frightening, creature.

He said:

“The flappers can be moved up and down without pain to poor Tom. I ought to mention that he has two smaller flappers near the large ones, in fact, he seems to sprout all over with wings, just as if he were the inventor of a new flying machine”.

He didn’t want the reader to feel too sorry for Thomas Bessie, though, who was said to have lived like a vagabond before he was catapulted against his will into an awkward life of fame.

In the cat’s previous life, it was sadly shunned by the respectable mogs of Armley.

“He was not even allowed to join in those choice vocal efforts which are the expression of the highest state of amorous feline felicity”.

So, for the price of a poke of a stick and some noisy gasps when he was trying to take a nap, Thomas Bessie was now spoiled.

The report said he sensed his own importance in the cat world.

“He developed a pride, surliness of temper and a general stand-offishness that is truly deplorable.

My kind of cat.

The article continued…

“The fact that the cat arrived at the humble home of an Armley navvy is due to one of those fortuitous combinations of circumstances which have ever blessed the lives of the great”.

Weird menagerie

A week later, another reporter came to Tong Road to investigate for the Armley and Wortley News.

On his arrival, there was a sign up outside the house. It warned visitors that the ‘World Famous Cat With Wings’ would not be exhibited until further notice.

The Martins had been overworking Thomas Bessie. More than 600 people had paid to see him recently, and a vet diagnosed the cat with exhaustion and ordered it to rest.

Punters were leaving disappointed and some even offered to purchase Thomas Bessie so they could take him home instead.

The report said Mr Martin turned down a £120 bid from a man who, intriguingly, had been showing a “sort of fox” around Leeds and wanted to add a cat with wings to his weird menagerie.

Courtroom drama

Thomas Bessie had become a license to print money for the Martin family.

But their side hustle came to an abrupt end after one of the most bizarre court cases ever heard in Leeds.

At the Leeds County Court in June 1893, William Markham of Bramley sued Benjamin Martin for £50 in damages for the detention of a cat.

Mr Markham also asked for a court order to return the animal, because he claimed that the winged cat Thomas Bessie originally belonged to him.

Ever since it disappeared a few months earlier, he’d learned that a very similar puss had been exhibited as a “curious monstrosity” at a house in Armley.

Mrs Markham went to have a look for herself. She had no doubt Thomas Bessie was their cat.

She went home to her husband, who returned to Tong Road and banged on the door. He tried to explain that this winged cat was his.

He was knocked back by Mrs Martin, who told him: “Ya can tak t’cat if ya’ll pay us what we gav for it”.

The former Leeds County Court on Albion Place.

In court, a solicitor showed a drawing of the cat with wings. Witness after witness said its head and body were very much like the Markham cat.

However, they all said that it didn’t have wings when Mr Markham had it.

The judge was unsure and said the matter would require a closer look.

Thomas Bessie was brought into the courtroom in a hamper and was heard “murmuring in a faint tone”.

Amid the craning of necks in the crowded public gallery, the cat was finally produced.

It appeared thinner since it was last exhibited in Armley and it looked round the court “with a frightened air”.

The wings were lifted by Mr Martin for the benefit of the judge. The cat remained quietly in his arms for the remainder of the hearing.

The curious flappers

Mr Child, a solicitor speaking on behalf of Benjamin Martin, warned that a grave mistake had been made.

The cat’s pedigree was impeccable, he said, and they’d even traced its lineage back to a tomcat owned by Princess Beatrice, a child of Queen Victoria.

Mr Child pointed out that all the witnesses had failed to identify the cat’s distinguishing feature, its wings.

He argued that when Mr Markham cynically realised money could be made from exhibiting “this monstrosity”, he claimed Thomas Bessie as the cat he had lost.

Mr Frank Somers, a vet, was brought in as an expert witness.

He examined the wings of the English and Persian mix very carefully.

After much deliberation and tension in the courtroom, he was persuaded that the flappers were, in fact, matted fur that had stuck together to give the appearance of wings.

The judge had heard enough now and sided with Mr Markham, the original owner.

He said “he had not the slightest doubt” that it was his cat. He ordered the Martins to return it and pay £20 in costs.

The Markhams spoke in a soft voice towards the cat, whispering, “Come, Bessie!” in the courtroom as they were reunited.

Stuffed

Just a year later, the Armley and Wortley News provided a sad update about Thomas Bessie.

The winged cat had died. It had then been stuffed at the F.Lawrence and Co taxidermy shop on Albion Street.

The taxidermist had done a good job of it, too. The cat was sitting in a natural position and the wings were proudly pointed.

The report said there was a constant crowd of people at the window looking at the cat, and a stuffed badger, too.

The legend lives on

I bought a book online called ‘Animal Fakes & Frauds’ by Peter Dance because I read that it might shed some more light on the afterlife of Thomas Bessie.

In it, the author describes the faked mermaids, basilisks, dragons, hydras, sea serpents, birds, butterflies, fossils and jackalopes that have been attempted throughout history, with varying degrees of success, it’s fair to say.

The book has been out of print since the 1970s but it’s thoroughly bonkers and entertaining.

According to the book, in the early 1960s, an information sheet was distributed from an address off New Bond Street in London advertising “the famous winged cat” to any “enterprising purchaser”.

This stuffed cat was preserved in a glass-fronted case with “Thomas Bessie from Leeds” engraved on it.

The legend of Thomas had been altered slightly since 1893, but the document claimed wings had grown from the cat since it was a very young kitten.

In this alternate history, a circus owner saw the winged creature and tried to turn it into a performing cat.

However, the cat’s original owner took him to court in the late 19th century after hearing that he was being exhibited for commercial gain. He won, which sounds similar to the Markham vs Martin case.

The information sheet said the circus owner returned Thomas Bessie in a box with some food. It was then mysteriously found dead on arrival due to apparent food poisoning.

The distressed original owner of the cat arranged for its preservation with a taxidermist, and that was how it came to be stuffed and enclosed in a mahogany and glass case.

Being hawked around 60 years after he died does seem an undignified end for the cat. He wasn’t allowed to rest much in life or death, it seems.

But I wonder if this curious piece of Leeds Victoriana is still out there somewhere?

I think I’ll search for Thomas Bessie winged cat on eBay every once in a while, just in case he turns up.

A stuffed cat with wings. Not Thomas Bessie.

Sources

Armley and Worltey News, June 2, 1893.

Yorkshire Evening Post, June 3, 1893.

Armley and Wortley News, June 9, 1893.

Yorkshire Evening Post, June 21, 1893.

Armley and Wortley News, June 21, 1893.

Armley and Wortley News, June 29, 1894.