Dick Whittington and His Cat is the English folklore surrounding the real-life Richard Whittington, wealthy merchant and later Lord Mayor of London. The legend describes his rise from poverty-stricken childhood with the fortune he made through the sale of his cat to a rat-infested country. However, the real Whittington did not come from a poor family of common stock, and there is no compelling evidence supporting the stories about the cat, or even whether he owned one.
From title page of The Famous and Remarkable History of Sir Richard Whittington, Three Times Lord-Mayor of London (1770), Thomas and John Fleet, printers. —Boston Public Library
Dick Whittington and His Cat, a statue in the Guildhall, London.—Laurence Tindall (1999).
Richard Whittington and his Cat, considered a "fictitious portrait".—Benoist's engraving, after a lost painting at Mercers' Hall, from The New Wonderful Museum, and Extraordinary Magazine (1805).
Sir William Gore Ouseley was a British diplomat who served in various roles in Washington, D.C., Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. His main achievement were negotiations concerning ownership of Britain's interests in what is now Honduras and Nicaragua.
Botafogo Bay near Rio de Janeiro by William Gore Ouseley – 1852