Kirlee.

Devon Rex, although known and loved worldwide, are a truly British creation and every one can trace their ancestry back to a single cat, Kirlee, born in Devon in 1960.

In a Buckfastleigh disused tin mine lived a group of cats, including one with a curly coat. A lady, Miss Cox, lived nearby and befriended a tortie and white female, who at one point had a litter of kittens from this curly male. One the kittens inherited his fathers curly coat and Miss Cox kept him and named him Kirlee. He was a wonderful character, he was intelligent, extremely affectionate and was quite dog like - he even wagged his tail when happy.



Miss Cox saw a photo of a Cornish Rex (which originated from a single cat called Kallibunker, born in a farmhouse on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall in 1950), and contacted Mr Stirling-Webb, a cat breeder who was interested in developing new, and experimental, breeds.

Of course the discovery of another curly coated cat caused a great deal of excitement in the cat fancy but after mating Kirlee to various of Kallibunker's descendents all the kittens were straight coated. It was at that point they realised that the gene that caused Kirlee's coat to rex was a different gene to Kallibunker's. So several of Kirlee's daughters were mated back to him and they produced some rexed kittens.

Over the years the gene pool has been expanded by using other breeds and moggies, and now Devon Rex can come in pretty much any colour and pattern combination. Including, siamese points, bi-colour, white, burmese and tonkinese patterns.

Todays Devon Rex still retain Kirlee's look and personality - including the tail wagging - and they are a delight to live, they love to climb and sit about your shoulders and will happily jump from the floor to reach them!