Siamese (and Traditional Siamese or Applehead Siamese) History history

The breed was first seen outside their Asian home in 1884, when the British Counsul-General in Bangkok, Mr. Owen Gould, brought a pair of the cats back to Britain for his sister, Mrs. Veley (who went on to be co-founder of the Siamese Cat Club in 1901). The cats were shown at the Crystal Palace in 1885, and the following year another pair (with kittens) were imported by a Mrs. Vyvyan and her sister. Compared to the British Shorthair and Persian cats that were familiar to most Britons, these Siamese imports were somewhat longer and less "cobby" in body, had heads that were less round and larger ears. These differences and the pointed coat pattern which had not been seen before by Westerners, produced a strong impression--one early viewer described them as "an unnatural nightmare of a cat"! But these striking cats also won some devoted fans and over the next several years fanciers imported a small number of cats, which together these formed the base breeding pool for the entire breed in Britain. It is believed that most Siamese today are descended from about eleven of these original imports.

The original Siamese imports were medium-sized, rather long-bodied, muscular, graceful cats with moderately wedge-shaped heads and ears that were comparatively large but in proportion to the size of the head. The cats ranged from rather substantial to rather slender but were not extreme in either way.

In the 1950s - 1960s, many breeders and cat show judges began to favor the more slender look and as a result of generations of selective breeding, created increasingly long, fine-boned, extremely "Oriental" cats; eventually the modern show Siamese was bred to be extremely elongated, with thin, tubular bodies, long, slender legs, a whip-thin tail and long, narrow, wedge- or triangular-shaped heads topped by extremely large ears. The major cat organizations altered their official breed standards to favor this newer streamlined type of Siamese, and the minority of breeders who stayed with the original style found that their cats were no longer competitive in the show ring. By the mid-1980s, cats of the original style had disappeared from cat shows, but a few breeders continued to breed and register them, resulting in two types of purebred Siamese � the modern show Siamese, and the "traditional," or "Apple Head" Siamese, both descended from the same distant ancestors, but with few or no recent ancestors in common. In the late 1980s, breeders and fans of the older style of Siamese, concerned that the old lines were threatened with extinction, organized to preserve them, to educate the public about the breed's history and to provide information on where people could buy kittens of the more moderate type, which became known primarily as "Traditional Siamese".

Complete List
Felis catus	American Bobtail	American Keuda	Angora (British Angora) renamed Oriental Longhair in 2002	Asian Semi-longhair (or Tiffanie)
Balinese	Birman	British Longhair	Chantilly/Tiffany cat	Cherubim (or Honeybear)
Colourpoint Longhair	Exotic cat	Himalayan	Javanese	Maine Coon
Nebelung	Neva Masquerade	Norwegian Forest Cat	Oriental Longhair	Persian
Ragdoll (and Ragamuffin)	Siberian	Snow Cat	Somali	Sterling
Turkish Van	Turkish Angora	York Chocolate cat	Abyssinian	American Shorthair
Antipodean (New Zealand Shorthair)	Australian Mist (or Spotted Mist)	Bombay	British Shorthair	Brazilian Shorthair
Burmese	Burmilla	Chartreux	Colorpoint Shorthair	Cornish Rex
Egyptian Mau	European Shorthair	Havana Brown	Jungala	Khao Manee
Korat	Kucing Malaysia	Malayan Burmese	Oriental Shorthair	Russian Blue
Savannah	Siamese (and Traditional Siamese or Applehead Siamese)	Tonkinese	American Curl	American Ringtail
American Wirehair	Bengal cat	California Spangled Cat	Chausie	Cymric
Desert Lynx	Devon Rex	Don Sphynx	Foldex Cat	German Rex
Japanese Bobtail	Kurilian Bobtail Shorthair	LaPerm	Manx	Mojave Spotted
Munchkin	Ocicat	Ojos Azules	Peterbald	Pixie-bob
Selkirk Rex	Serengeti	Singapura	Sphynx	Scottish Fold
Snowshoe	Sokoke	Suqutranese	Thai	Toyger
Ussuri	Wild Abyssinian