Where does the Cornish Rex come from?

The question in the title is asking about the origin of the cat breed called the Cornish Rex, one of the Rex cats. The first Cornish Rex cat was born in an old farmhouse on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, UK on 21 July 1950. Originally the cat was called the 'English Rex' until a second form of Rex cat was discovered in nearby Devon (Devon Rex). The map below shows you the location of Bodmin, Cornwall.

A red tabby male cat in a litter of five kittens born to a standard farm cat called Serena was seen to be different to the others because he had an unusual curly coat. The owner, Mrs Nina Ennismore kept the kitten and on the advice of a geneticist, I am told, mated the curly-coated male kitten back to his mother, a tortoiseshell cat.

Beautiful Cornish Rex cat with a Van-type coat. Photo: Pinterest.

This mating produced a litter containing two curly-coated kittens and one plain-coated kitten. They were back crossed a further time to produce further curly-coated kittens and the new breed called the Cornish Rex was established.

Clearly, a lot of inbreeding took place in those early days to establish this breed. This is typical of how breeders operate. They exercise a balancing act between too much inbreeding and fixing the appearance of the cat.

The first mail Cornish Rex cat and the founding cat of the breed 'Kallibunker'.

RELATED: Cornish Rex Cat.

American Cornish Rex

The fantastic photographs of the Cornish Rex cat that you can see on this page are of the American Cornish Rex breed. If you don't want to go to that page here is one of the photographs:

Cornish Rex bred in America and photographed by Helmi Flick published here with her express permission.

If you go to the Cornish Rex page of the GCCF (Governing Council of the Cat Fancy - UK) website and see the Cornish Rex cat you can see the difference with the Cornish Rex cat on this page: Cornish Rex cat (these show photographs of American breed cats). The American Cornish Rex has been selectively bred with the German Rex, the Oriental and the Cornish Rex. The British Cornish Rex looks less rangy, less fragile (wrong word?) and the face a little more average looking (less long and less thin). The cat, then, is generally less delicate looking than the American Cornish Rex, which as you can see from the photographs looks very slender and seems delicate (but probably isn't) and leggy. American Cornish Rex to Home page