Black Cat Cigarettes was first introduced to the English market in 1904 by Carreras Ltd , the company of a London-based Spanish nobleman, which was by then well-established in the tobacco market. Carreras built the art deco Greater London House in Mornington Crescent as a factory in 1926, and Black Cat was one of the first machine manufactured cigarette brands in the UK. The cat itself owes its origins to a real black cat that used to reside in Don Jose Carreras Ferrer’s Wardour Street shop. – Ghost Signs: London’s fading Spectacle of History – Sam Roberts and Sebastian Groes – Literary London Journal