science

Peter III (cat)

Peter III (cat) is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter III (cat) rather than just read about it. In short: Peter III (c. 1947 – 9 March 1964) was a cat who served as the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office from 1947 to 1964. He was the successor to Peter II, who died after being hit by a car in Whitehall.

Key takeaways

Peter III (cat) belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter III (cat) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter III (cat) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Peter III (c. 1947 – 9 March 1964) was a cat who served as the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office from 1947 to 1964. He was the successor to Peter II, who died after being hit by a car in Whitehall. He served under five prime ministers: Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, and Alec Douglas-Home. He was euthanised after suffering a liver infection, aged 16, and was succeeded by Peta, a Manx cat. He was buried in Ilford, Essex.

Life and career Peter became the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office on 27 August 1947 following the death of Peter II, who had been hit by a car in Whitehall. He was still a kitten when he assumed the role and wore a tartan cat collar with a medallion bearing his name. Peter attracted widespread public attention following an appearance on the BBC current affairs programme Tonight in 1958; he also had a large fanbase in both Italy and the United States and received letters and gifts from Australia. In 1958 a worker at the Home Office, in response to a letter complaining that Peter's food allowance was too low, noted that he had left the chewed body of a pigeon inside his desk, and, as he had not fully eaten it, was therefore "not suffering from starvation". In October 1958 it was reported that Peter's living allowance had been raised due to rising costs; a Home Office spokesman said that "everyone seems satisfied that he does his job well". However, Peter did not receive a pay increase in 1962, during the chancellor of the Exchequer Selwyn Lloyd's "Pay Pause". In 1960 Peter defecated on a doormat near the Cenotaph shortly before the Remembrance Day ceremony; it was disposed of by a civil servant before the Queen arrived. Peter appeared on the home secretary's official 1958 Christmas card, and in an October 1962 issue of the magazine Women's Realm. Throughout his life, Peter made a number of appearances in media, including in television and film. Speaking in 2017, Chris Day, the head of Modern Domestic Records at the National Archives, called Peter "the first superstar cat of Whitehall".

Death and burial Peter was euthanised on 9 March 1964 after suffering an incurable liver infection, aged 16. Two days after his death Ronald Garvey, the lieutenant governor of the Isle of Man, offered the Home Office a Manx cat; on 8 May he was replaced by that cat, called Peta. Peter's burial was held "with full honours" on 13 March 1964 at the PDSA pet cemetery in Ilford, Essex, at a plot of land that had been "reserved for Peter for several years". It was immediately preceded by a procession including a donkey, two women from the Home Office staff and various journalists and photographers. He was buried in a brass-handled veneered oak coffin, on which a nosegay of daffodils and anemones had been placed, along with a card which read "To Peter, from an animal lover"; this was lowered into the grave from "a purple-draped wheelbarrow". At the burial, Amy Gough, a civil servant, said:

We'll miss him. He was the friendliest cat ... he slept in in-trays, and on copies of The Times, and he was particularly fond of liver.

See also List of individual cats Tibs the Great, British Post Office cat who served around the same time

References

Notes

Citations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter III (cat)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter III (cat) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter III (cat) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter III (cat) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter III (cat)

In research: Peter III (cat) appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter III (cat) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter III (cat) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1964 animal deaths, Animal deaths by euthanasia, Chief mousers to the Cabinet Office, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter III (cat) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Peter III (cat)” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Peter III (cat) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter III (cat) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter III (cat) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter III (cat) in simple terms?

Why does Peter III (cat) matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter III (cat)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter III (cat).