Gladstone

A Treasury appointment in February 2016

Gladstone, a black short-haired male cat, was rehomed by HM Treasury from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and announced as Chief Mouser to the Treasury on 11 February 2016, ten weeks before Palmerston's parallel appointment at the Foreign Office. Battersea estimated he was approximately two years old at intake. The Treasury press release described him as named for William Ewart Gladstone, the Liberal statesman who served four non-consecutive terms each as Prime Minister and as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1852 and 1894 — the only Chief Mouser whose namesake held both posts. The recommendation to fill the position came from Permanent Secretary Sir Nicholas Macpherson in his final weeks before retirement.

A deliberately low public profile

Unlike Larry at Number 10 or Palmerston at the FCO, Gladstone was not given a press-managed social-media account. The Treasury press office has consistently declined to comment on the cat in detail when asked by domestic political journalists; the few photographs in public circulation are largely incidental shots taken by visiting delegations or by Treasury staff in personal capacity. The Press Gazette in October 2019 noted that Gladstone was the only one of the 2016 Whitehall trio with no dedicated Twitter feed, which the department's press office attributed at the time to a decision to keep the role functional rather than promotional.

An ongoing working post

Gladstone remained the Treasury's resident cat through the changes of chancellor from George Osborne to Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid, Rishi Sunak, Nadhim Zahawi, Kwasi Kwarteng, Jeremy Hunt, and Rachel Reeves between 2016 and 2024. The Treasury has not publicly confirmed his continued tenure since a 2022 staff newsletter mentioned him in passing; departmental sources told the Guardian for a March 2023 feature on Whitehall pets that the cat was still in post, though his age would put him into the senior bracket by veterinary measure. The Treasury Chief Mouser post has no statutory basis; like the FCO and Cabinet Office equivalents, it is funded by voluntary staff contribution and operates at no cost to the public purse.