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Ch Wankee
DoB: 28-09-1895
Recorded as a
Seal-point
Siamese -
but was he?

Wong Mau with her kittens,
the famous progenitor of the Burmese breed.
She was proven, genetically, to be a
Tonkinese |
The Tonkinese of today is a revival, or reconstruction if you
prefer, of a cat that existed inextricably in history with cats that, since
the early 1900’s, we have chosen to call Burmese and Siamese. The three
‘breeds’ are genetically related and initially they were only
distinguishable by their coat-patterns and eye colour, they looked
very similar in shape until as late as the 1970s. It must be noted that the Tonkinese is not a
hybrid, and may only be called a cross-breed in terms of its deliberate
revival in the 1950’s. There are several pictures of such cats in ancient
Siamese (Thai) manuscripts. There is also evidence that many of the early
cats thought to be Siamese or Burmese were really Tonkinese such as Wong
Mau, ancestress of the Burmese breed. Early Siamese breeders saw that some
of their cats had greenish-blue eyes with darker bodies than the more
familiar Siamese variety. They called these darker cats ‘Chocolate Siamese’.
Unfortunately the Chocolate Siamese were not as popular as the alleged
‘Royal’ Siamese with their most unusual sapphire blue eyes and well defined
coat-patterns, hence the Chocolates were lost as an individual breed at that
time.
From the 1930’s there was much interest in establishing a
‘new’ breed of very attractive brown cats from Dr Joseph Thompson’s Wong
Mau, to be called the Burmese. Then in the mid 1950’s American, Milan Greer,
began to breed Siamese with Burmese, producing cats that he knew were often
discarded from the Burmese or Siamese breeding programmes for supposedly
having incorrect coat-patterns. His cats had the intermediate coat-pattern
produced by the unique co-dominance of the Burmese (cb) and Siamese (cs)
coat-pattern genes. Ten years later, Canadian breeder Margaret Conroy and
American breeder Jane Barletta conducted their own breeding programmes to produce a cat that combined their ideal
attributes of the Burmese and Siamese. What they did was to revive
an ancient breed. They were delighted with their cats. The breed was officially recognised in Canada in
1965 and later in America in 1972 as ‘Tonkinese’, to give them their
own identity. In February 2002 the Cat Fanciers Association of America (CFA) granted Championship status
to the solid and pointed patterned Tonkinese.
It wasn’t until 1991 that the Governing Council of the
Cat Fancy granted the Tonkinese UK recognition. After 10 years of hard work
and much success by the Tonkinese, in competition with Championship breeds,
the GCCF finally granted us Championship status (June 19th 2002) -
and on 1st June 2003 the UK Tonks were able to compete for titles.
There are now many UK Champions, Premiers, Grand Champions and Grand Premiers;
at present there is also a UK Grand Premier and an Imperial Grand Premier
Tonkinese.
In October 2000 the South African Cats Association
granted Preliminary Recognition to the Tonkinese, all due to the hard work
of enthusiast and breeder, Jeanine Grobbelaar. Her dedication was rewarded by
the Tonkinese promotion to Championship in October 2001.
With the exception of FiFe, Tonks are now recognised by all
major pedigree cat organisations.
If you are interested, there is a far more detailed history of the
Tonkinese in my book 'Tonkinese
Cats'. |