Information about British Shorthair

A little about the history of the British Shorthair.

British Shorthair, originated from England where breeding of the breed started in about the 1880s, based on the especially large and powerful short-haired cats. This was particularly the blue color variation that was popular, but also a few other solid and tabby was among the first color variations to see.

To further develop the breed's strong and robust type as well as develop more colors the Persian were breed in. Type-wise resembled contemporary Persian about the British Shorthair, not as we see the type of Persian of days. The disadvantage was the long hair that was passed on to British Shorthair breeding as a recessive gene. Although this is more ten years, we see today that it sometimes shows up litter where the kittens have long hair. The hidden gene for longhair can then be passed on from generation to generation for then suddenly to emerge when both parents carry the gene for longhair.

Outside England, the breed had a slightly dazed existence. Until 1982, there were only a blue variant which was called the British Blue. All other colors were in the same group as European Shorthair breed, even if they after the standard were closer to British Shorthair than the somewhat slimmer variant, European Shorthair.
There were also used the French short-haired breed Chartreux in the breeding. This race was pretty close to the standard of British Shorthair and it has always found only in one color, namely blue. It had, in other words a good opportunity to further develop the blue color, and it did. Even today as earlier it was the lightest one possible blue color that was favored. Eye color was in many way very beautiful dark copper or orange.

After a period was the final British Shorthair in 1982 approved as a separate race outside England, in the European Union FIFe. The approval meant that all cats that had hitherto been listed as a European Shorthair, but that after the standard was closer to British Shorthair was reregistrated as British Shorthair and British Blue was reregistrated to the British Shorthair as a color variant - blue.

After this, both the Chartreux and European Shorthair been rare to see, especially Chartreux are too many now an unknown race, while the British Shorthair has evolved to become one of the most popular shorthair races in Europe. Many new colors have seen the light, especially in the last 10 years. Among the newer colors include chocolate, lilac, white patch and the color point. It has also been a trend in recent years where we see more colors combined with a pattern, such as turtle spotted or sølvtabby and white.

© Marit Mersland