While the idea of a
Cheshire cat
And a grinning one at that
Is often traced to
Lewis Carroll
In his
Alice wonderall
The term had been reused repletely
And in fact abused completely
By the time he wrote the tale
Of this girl’s miraculous fall
Where it came from no one knows
But it had been claimed by those
Who sell cheeses made in Cheshire
That it comes from cheese’s mold
And by people hanging signs
Amongst the Cheshire country pines
That said a grinning lion symbol
Had been there from days untold
But seriously, the idea of a grinning Cheshire cat wasn’t Carroll’s - it’s certainly documented as early as 1808 and may have gone a while back. Cheshire cheese was sold molded in a grinning cat shape, and it was even suggested that the cat disappearing from tail to smile was equivalent to slicing the cheese from one side to the other. It’s also noted that many signs on Cheshire inns sported drawings of smiling lions. Carroll, who was born in Cheshire, would have been familiar with this image.
Information taken from: Gardner, Martin, The annotated Alice, The definitive edition. Penguin Books, 2001