Hoare, H.Ronald. Mouse Fancy, its Nature and Content; with special reference to Genetics. [typed manuscript]. London. [1954].>>Very curious unpublished monograph on fancy mice<<

Hand-numbered, [2], 187 - printed, with author's manuscript additions, on rectos only. Tipped-in, hand labelled, black and white photographs, coloured Hillingdon Mouse Club show tickets, graphs, hand-coloured drawings, plans, newspaper and magazine cuttings on most versos. Introduction, ten chapters: 'Aesthetics and Animal Fancies', 'Classification', 'Housing', 'Feeding'. 'Breeding', 'Exhibiting', 'Inbreeding', 'Groups and Colours -Agouti, Black, Chocolate, Yellow, Silvered, Tan, Fox, Dominant Pied Factor, Recessive Pied Factor, and Albino', 'Known Mutant genes', and 'Animal Keeping in Schools'. Conclusion and three Appendices: 'Bibliography', 'Expenditure', and 'Experimental Work'. Some light foxing. 285 x 240 mm. Contemporary green embossed buckram binder. Original mottled green endpapers.

This work was submitted by Ronald Hoare in his examination (3118) for the Alternative Certification Program (Teacher Candidate) at the College of St. Marks and St. Johns, Chelsea - that had merged in 1923 and moved to Plymouth in 1973. Hoare made observations of mice in many London schools, namely Hemel Hempstead Grammar, St. Marylebone Grammar, St. George's Harpenden, Highfield College, Beaulieu College, Alleyn Court, Essendine, Monkton Wyld, Lots Road, Gladstone Park, Britannia Road, Melcombe, Queen's Park, and Bushey County Secondary Schools. Hoare may have later taught at Wymondham College.

Walter Maxey originally founded the National Mouse Club in 1895. Shows today are most commonly held in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. The breeding of fancy mice led to the creation of the ancestors of modern laboratory mice. For the most part, individual mouse geneticists worked in isolation at various institutions around the world. Typically, each of these researchers focused on a single locus or well-defined experimental problem that was amenable to analysis within a small breeding colony. Members of the mouse community kept track of each other's progress through a publication called the 'Mouse Newsletter' and in its heyday during the 1960s, more than sixty institutions would routinely contribute. Patterns of inheritance in fancy mice helped geneticists map the mouse genome. The mouse was one of the five central model organisms in the Human Genome Project.