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200 year anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo: Unique records to be digitised

At our recent Summer Reception, guest speaker Kirsten Rausing announced £387,275 in funding from The ALBORADA Trust for a five year project to catalogue, properly store and digitise priority pieces from our historic collections and make them available for free online.

Amongst the documents we plan to digitise is a manuscript ledger recording the work of the Board of Ordnance Veterinary Hospital at Woolwich Barracks from 1802-1855 – a unique record of significance for the veterinary history of both the Battle of Waterloo and the Crimean War.woolwich 2

The hospital’s origins stem from February 1796 when the artillery horses stationed in Kent were reported to be in a diseased state.  Edward Coleman, Professor at the London Veterinary College, was asked to investigate.  His report confirmed that many of the horses had glanders and had been destroyed and recommended that a portion of the stables at Woolwich be set aside as an infirmary.

Coleman suggested that the infirmary could be staffed by a pupil from the veterinary college, who could remain in residence, and that he could attend once or twice a week. This plan was agreed very quickly and Coleman started as Medical Superintendent on 25 March 1796  at 10s a day and John Percivall as Assistant at 6s a day.

The ledger is divided into two parts – the first section lists the admissions of sick and injured horses from the

  • Horse Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery,
  • The Corps of Royal Artillery Drivers, the Riding Establishment
  • Senior officers of the regiment stationed in Woolwich.

The second section is a store issuing and receipt book for the hospital which allows researchers to see the huge increase in supplies required directly after the Battle of Waterloo and during the build up to the Crimean War.

The National Army Museum’s Waterloo 200 project carries the strapline ‘discover the battle that changed the world’.  We are delighted that on the 200th Anniversary of the Battle  this document, which highlights the role of veterinary surgeons in this world-changing event, will soon be made available for all to view.

The digitisation project will start later this year – and I will post the history behind our most interesting and rare pieces and updates on progress here, so watch this space!

Image credit: Jacob Bland

 

RCVS Archives Project: Next steps

As you will have gathered from the previous blog by our Archivist Lorna, the Archives Project here at RCVS Knowledge is well under way. Whilst Lorna is currently getting to grips with the collections (and Fred Smith’s handwriting) I have been recruited to work on the digital side of things.

IMG_1607a

My name is Adele and since the beginning of January I’ve been working on the project as Archive and Digitisation Assistant. My role is to carry out the digitisation of priority documents within the archive and historical book collection, this includes preparing the material with preservation and repackaging measures, creating the high resolution digital images, writing descriptions and relevant metadata for the scans and uploading them onto an online digital archive. Around this I will also be assisting Lorna with promotion of the project through social media, displays and outreach activities such as talks. Once awareness of our collections grows and the enquiries come flying in I look forward delving into the collections to answer some of these too.

Previously I’ve worked as Archive Trainee at Rambert Dance Company and as the Archive and Special Collections Assistant at University of the Arts, London. Though I’ve worked with digital images within archive collections before- as well as taking on ad hoc digitisation- this project is on a whole new scale for me. I’m so excited to get our online digital archive up and running, it’s great to work in a project with such defined goals and to join at this early stage allowing me to be part of the decision making process. There are certainly many decisions to be made!

The first aspect of my role I looked into was the scanning itself. The library had already purchased a professional high resolution scanner so I was able to get straight on with comparing different settings. We want these scans to be of high quality and available in years to come so we chose to scan into TIFF format as this is uncompressed; it means it is excellent quality and 100% of the data captured during scanning is retained. For our printed text based images we want to our users to be able to search the text within them, from a TIFF file we are able to create a PDF document that we can perform optical character recognition on in order for this to be possible. We were also concerned with how easy it would be to read our images on a screen. After some in house-testing, it was decided that scanning images in greyscale provided more contrast. As the real value in our historical books and journals is the information within them, we made a decision to scan this type of material in greyscale. For images and archive material we will likely be scanning in colour to better represent the unique material context of these documents.

Veterinarian greyscale 75

The Veterinarian scanned in greyscale. Easy to read and a much more efficient file size to store.

Smith letter colour 75

Letter to Frederick Smith. If this were scanned in greyscale would we see that the annotations were made at separate times?

[Edit: These images have been compressed and resized, and do not reflect the quality of the images to be displayed in the digital archive.]

Of course once I had decided how I was going to scan the material, I needed to know what to scan. A priority list has been made by Clare our Head of Library and Information Services in agreement with our funders The Alborada Trust. This was based on demand, what is already accessible online elsewhere and predicted research value. As Lorna is currently in the process of cataloguing the first archive collection, it made the most sense for me to start with our historical book and journal collection and so I am currently working on scanning volumes of The Veterinarian. The Veterinarian, published from 1828 to 1902, was one of the first veterinary journals to be launched and we hold a complete run of the periodical bound by volume. I’m currently digitising the third volume and I can see why it has been chosen as a priority- there are some really interesting case studies and comments on the profession at that time.

The Veterinarian shelves (2)

Volumes of The Veterinarian 1828-1902

Now we have some digitised pages to work with, Lorna and I are trialling some Digital Asset Management systems for the most important part of the process – making the images accessible to you online. We hope to be able to give you an update on this soon.

If you are interested in our collections then follow the hashtag #vetarchives on our twitter account @RCVSKnowledge for some updates, fun discoveries and more.

If you have any questions for the Archives Project team, please email us archives@rcvsknowledge.org

-Adele-

Introducing Helena!

Hi, my name is Helena and I am the new Archive and Digitisation assistant. My role, like Adele’s before me, is to assist in the digitisation and online accessibility of documents within the archive and historical book collection.  I hope to one day become a fully qualified archivist so this role is a wonderful opportunity for me and a step towards that dream. I have recently been lucky enough to be accepted onto the Archives Management MA programme at UCL; so it’s been an exciting couple of months for me. Previously I have been a volunteer in the Stanley Kubrick archives at UAL and I have also volunteered my time with conservation staff at the Royal Museums of Greenwich.

Helena, in the RCVS Knowledge office

You are probably now aware that the website on which you can browse through these collections (hundreds and hundreds of years of veterinary history!) is now live. There are so many interesting and weird and wonderful artworks, letters, and articles to delve into. I’ve read about subjects ranging from singing to hogs to the medical properties of Marshmallow.

The medical properties of marshmallow and liquorice, from ‘The Veterinarian’ Volume 4, Issue 1, January 1831

It’s fascinating to be a part of helping to make this history more accessible and to work with varied material.  For example, Frederick Smith’s Boer War letters, even though tricky to read, have been insightful personal accounts into wartime conditions. The website seems to give them a new lease of life, and with the Universal Viewer, you can view the handwriting in amazing detail. A selection of the letters are currently being transcribed. I think the hardest thing for me is to not stop to read too much and get distracted! So far I am finding it a captivating and enjoyable task.

Letter from Smith to his wife Mary Ann, from North of the Tugela River, South Africa, 22 January 1900 [FS/2/2/4/2/8]

Personally my favourite material is the Edward Mayhew watercolour collection – though the artworks detail many unfortunate circumstances, and sometimes his artwork depicting disease and veterinary practice is not for the squeamish!

‘Shyers’ by Edward Mayhew [EM/1/2/1]

There is a great deal more to come and more decisions to be made on what to scan. You can also follow the highlights of the collection on Twitter and Facebook where we regularly post updates, explain the functionality and features, and sometimes ask questions for readers to try and help us answer. Most recently we have been stumped with what the disease ‘Chewgore’ could be, as mentioned in the journal ‘The Veterinarian’, the writers are perplexed themselves.

The Chewgore in Sheep, from ‘The Veterinarian’ Volume 3, Issue 6, June 1830

Please let us know what you think! We value your feedback on your experience with the site. Feel free to join in with tasks like suggesting tags to enhance the searching the collection for other readers. We may one day be able to search within the actual text of printed works with OCR (optical character recognition) technology; though we will keep you posted on this.

I am hoping to get more involved with promoting the works that I interact with; I will post about my unusual and interesting finds as I scan my way through the collections. The site is filling up fast so I know we won’t be short of things to talk about.

If you are interested, then don’t hesitate to visit the site here. To make sure you don’t miss any of the highlights of the collection, follow our Facebook Page, Twitter account @RCVSKnowledge and also follow the hashtag #vetarchives.

Happy 160th Birthday Fred Smith!

Portrait of Fred Smith (with some minor alterations) [FS/2/1/6]

Today, 19th April, marks 160 years since the birth of Frederick Smith in 1857. I’m going to take this opportunity to tell you a bit more about the man, and what I like about him, after spending over a year working with his papers.

Potted History of Smith

Smith was born in Hull, in 1857, and after his father died in India when Smith was aged 10, his education was paid for by the Royal Patriotic Fund. He chose to study to veterinary science, not because of a particular interest in animals, but as a route to joining the armed services.

After graduating from the Royal Veterinary College in 1876, Smith served as an army veterinarian in India from 1878-1885. He was Professor at the Army Veterinary School in Aldershot from 1886-1893, and then returned to regimental duty at Woolwich, in Sudan and in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War. In 1903 he was appointed Principal Veterinary Officer in South Africa, and on return to Britain in 1905, PVO Eastern Command. Appointed Director General of the Army Veterinary Service in 1907, he then retired as a Major General in 1910. He twice briefly returned to the War Office during the Great War, and was knighted in 1918.

Between his military service, Smith was a prolific writer producing some 49 veterinary articles and books including A Manual of Veterinary Physiology, which ran to five editions, and a number of histories of the profession including his four volume work The Early History of Veterinary Literature.

Annotations from the past

Smith was not only a thorough and enthusiastic historian of his profession – but also of himself. I have mentioned in previous blog posts, that he annotated a great deal of his papers before they were deposited at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. This has meant that I often feel like Smith is directly speaking to me as I catalogue his papers – ninety years on from when we wrote his messages.

An example of these explanatory annotations is found on Smith’s ‘Scheme of Work’:

Tablet of work to be done and subjects to be studied, drawn up in 1886 [FS/2/1/1/2]

This framed ceramic tablet was found in an envelope labelled ‘Original scheme of work drawn up in 1886 and followed for years’. Some of the subjects listed for Smith to investigate include ‘Digestion Experiments’, ‘Describe the Histology of Elephant Skin’, ‘Work out Glanders’ and ‘Make a Urine Bag’. It seems that Smith’s curiosity and desire for knowledge knew no bounds. Smith was undeniably a workaholic and often mentions in letters the long hours he works. He did go on to study and publish papers on most of these subjects, and only in the last few months before his death did he really slow down.

Insights into character

The reason behind this work ethic may have been a fear of falling behind, or running out of time. He wrote in a letter to Henry Gray, a fellow veterinary surgeon,  on the subject of writing his book ‘Veterinary History of the War in South Africa’:

“I have been at ‘the War’ for months; it is only recently that I have been able to get ahead of the printer, but I continue to give it about ten hours a day, for I look up everything. I am compelled, owing to my limitations, to concentrate. I think of nothing else and do nothing else than the matter in hand.”

The ‘limitations’ to which Smith refers, are his perceived academic failings, which he often mentions in his letters. However, Smith is rarely guilty of false modesty, and has kept many examples of praise from his peers amongst his papers. But I suspect this is not just a case of feeling pleased with himself. He always seems grateful to those who have helped him along the way, and is clearly moved by words of support.

I was touched by this annotated photograph in his collection:

Photograph of Smith (second from left) being met by Sir Evelyn Wood (third from left) [FS/2/1/3/1]

The accompanying envelope was labelled:

“A postcard containing a photograph of Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood meeting me outside St James’s Palace after my Presentation on appointment as Director General of the Army Veterinary Service, 1907. The photograph is fading rapidly (I think it must have been taken by an amateur) but the kind thought which prompted him to come specially to the Palace to meet me is for ever permanent. F.S. July 1927”

Views to the future

Over the past year or so, I have grown to greatly admire Fred Smith, and enjoy the insights into his character the project has provided. Although we share very little in common, when it comes to political views or temperament, I share Smith’s fascination with history, and awareness of our place in it. Smith often thought about how the world was changing, and in many ways advancing, as can be seen in this letter to Fred Bullock, Secretary of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, in July 1923:

“Am glad to hear that the whooping cough is running its course correctly. How we shall be laughed at 100 years hence for tolerating this pest!”

Smith foresaw whooping cough being easily treated within the next 100 years, and in fact a vaccine was developed in the 1940s, not long after his death. What Smith did not foresee, was another increase in deaths by whooping cough 40 years after that, due to a mythical connection between the vaccine and encephalopathy which resulted in people refusing immunisation. Our generation is certainly in no position to laugh at those who came before us – and could still stand to learn more from them.

I do not know whether Smith could have ever predicted how people would see his work today, nearly 90 years after his death. So far we have uploaded nearly 200 works from Smith’s collection to our Digital Collections website, which can be accessed instantly, and for free, anywhere in the world. As Smith had to write a letter to the RCVS Secretary, in order to arrange a time to speak on the telephone, I feel sure he would be amazed and excited by these developments.

So birthday cheers to Fred! May your legacy continue for centuries more!

Living Pictures – Vet History Podcast

This year, RCVS Knowledge were very pleased to participate in an internship scheme organised by the Kings College London History department. MA student Abbie Latham spent a few months with us, reading and transcribing Fred Smith’s Boer War letters. She also recorded the following podcast, in which she explores aspects of the letters relating to technological developments in war reporting in the nineteenth century.

Abbie’s transcriptions have been added to the Digital Collections website, underneath the digital images of the individual Boer War letters. Now it is even easier to access this fascinating resource, and read a first hand account of this devastating conflict. Click here to view the letters.

 

The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Management

‘The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Animal Management’

We have recently uploaded our collection of ‘The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Animal Management’. In our Library we hold all eight volumes and the specimen issue.

This Quarterly Journal was the very first British veterinary periodical to be devoted to India. We are actually quite lucky to hold these surviving volumes as copies are scarce.

Specimen issue of ‘Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Animal Management’. Published in 1882

Fred Smith (who you can read about here) contributed to the journal by providing noteworthy papers on hygiene and diseases along with clinical records.  Smith writes about the ‘The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Animal Management’ in his own autobiography, which is an interesting insight into the struggles the journal went through. Smith had to go to great lengths in order for it to be published. At one point in his autobiography Smith writes; “I had to live in the printing office while the Journal was being printed”. The first printer and publisher Smith worked with (who could read English but not speak it) died before the first volume managed to be distributed.

The journal did not make a profit at any time during its print run and Smith and the founding editor John Henry Steel would have to use their own funds to cover its expense.

“We received no help from home. I do not think we had a single English Subscriber … It was a bold and expensive venture and I was glad to be relieved of the financial burden”

In 1885 Smith severed his ties to India as he was invalided back to England and withdrew from co-editorship in 1887 leaving Steel to carry on alone until his death in 1891.  With Steel’s death the Quarterly Journal also met its demise.

The last editorial of John Henry Steel entitled ‘Cui Bono’. Steel passed away in January 1891

It’s rare to find out some of the history behind a journal, how it came to be and the obstacles it faced. It’s provided me with a deeper appreciation of the content and certainly explained the continuity errors which, at times, frustrated me during the digitisation process. Now I’m very much impressed by Smith and Steel’s work. Especially Steel; who wrote throughout his serious illness. He shouldered the journal largely alone. You can find out more about this dedicated man, in this blog post here including further insights into this pioneering periodical.

Smith believed the journal was of equal interest to an English audience as it was to an Indian one. I hope those interested in veterinary history and literature will enjoy reading the volumes now.

As you can see the image below features content from the periodical  including work  by T. J. Symonds: ‘Illustrations of Indian materia medica. If you are interested in seeing more of these gorgeous full coloured illustrations and also finding out more about their creator please click the link above.

You can read the volumes of ‘The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Animal Management’ on our Digital Collections website here

Selection of diagrams and illustrations featured inside the periodical.

A Few Of My Favourite Things

I thought before I leave my role here, and go off to study for my MA in Archives and Records Management, it would be a nice idea to share snippets of my favourite finds and favourite materials that I’ve had the pleasure of working with during my time with RCVS Knowledge’s historical collections.

For those of you who also follow us on social media you might be aware of some of the fun we’ve had using hashtags whilst photographing our daily finds and tasks.

I have enjoyed never having to beat the Monday blues whilst I’ve been working here. In fact Mondays have been every colour imaginable and I’ve been celebrating that with #marbledmondays on our Instagram account

Highlights of our #marbledmondays photographs on Instagram

It didn’t stop with Mondays – #tinytuesdays, #waybackwednesdays, #throwbackthursdays and #finebindingfridays, have all allowed me to engage with our library and archive collections in new ways, and of course, to show them off!

More photographs showing off our collections!

I have also adventured to far-flung lands alongside fascinating people, such as Captain Richard Crawshay, who authored the book The Birds of Tierra del Fuego (published in 1907). His letters are now transcribed and can be viewed via our Digital Collections website here.

Page from letter to Frederick Smith from Richard Crawshay, Useless Bay [Inutil Bay], Tierra del Fuego, [Chile], 29 Jan 1905 [FS/3/3/3/1]

This is one of my favourite quotes from Crawshay’s letters (pictured above):

“The most sensational birds I have – to me at least are a tiny Reed Warbler no larger than a Bumble Bee, a tiny black wren from the depths of the forest at the entrance of Admiralty Sound, a tiny tiny owl from the forest weighing exactly 3 oz, probably the largest bird of prey in the island – an Eagle measuring 5ft 91/2 inches from wing tip to wing tip…”

One of my favourite people to get to know was Henry Gray, an early 20th century veterinary surgeon. I am cataloguing his papers and have learnt so much through the words of his correspondents. Henry Gray’s papers have given me a great insight into the plight of the veterinary professional in the 1900’s. Through Gray and his peers I have learnt about the veterinary surgeon’s tremendous work ethic and their incredible anatomical, clinical, pathological and physiological knowledge. One of the most interesting letters I found in Gray’s papers was one where he had a response from a librarian from the Royal Society of Medicine after requesting Ivan Pavlov’s research into canine hysteria and neurasthenia. It put Gray’s life into a greater context for me – imagine being able to reach out to Pavlov himself for your own research?

Letter to Henry Gray from H E Powell, Librarian, Royal Society of Medicine, 9 Oct 1929

The most recent exciting discovery was a batch of finely detailed 19th century artworks which the archivist found tucked away in a cupboard. The pieces have now been carefully restored and we have an online shop where you can pick up a select few as prints! (You can visit the shop here: shop.rcvsvethistory.org) I enjoyed getting to digitise these amazing paintings and drawings, even though the art is as equally beautiful as it is grisly! Ovet the next few months, we are going to be asking our Instagram and Twitter audience to help us identify the parts of the anatomy we can’t, so stay tuned for that! There are many other amazing artists in our collection and it was interesting for me to find out that some of them had actually practiced as veterinary surgeons too, such as Edward Mayhew and John Roalfe Cox.

Anatomical artwork by Joseph Perry, January 1835. From the Field Collection.

A page from John Roalfe Cox’s sketchbook

Thank you to everyone who has been following along with us. I have had so many great experiences in my time working for RCVS Knowledge. I’ve been here over a year and there is still so much more to discover. I’m so glad to have had a hand in sharing the important historical value of such an amazing profession.

-Helena-

A delve into veterinary case notes…

From February to April this year, RCVS Knowledge were very pleased to welcome Claudia Watts, an MA History student from King’s College London. As part of her studies, Claudia was tasked with selecting highlights from Fred Smith’s veterinary case notes, and digitising and transcribing them for us. The results are now published in our Digital Collections, and here Claudia shares some of her thoughts on the project.

Over the past few months, I have had the wonderful task of exploring and transcribing the incredible sources left behind by Veterinary Surgeon Frederick Smith during his time in India in the 1880s.

The further I delved into the mountain of work he left behind, I developed a clearer picture of this man; relentless, dedicated and a complete workaholic.

I have uncovered some truly unique treasures – often turning a page only to have my breath honestly taken away as I stumbled upon beautiful artwork (FS/2/2/2/1/7), unique photographs (FS/2/2/2/1/10) and of course mounds of fascinating case notes and reports. His work provides wonderful insight not only into the man himself, but also the workings of the Army Veterinary corps. In addition to this, it has been fascinating to see how he has used his findings and research to educate. Many case notes appearing in his articles and manuals. Within these folders are pieces of crucial veterinary history as Smith helped guide the profession, contributing to the institution today.

Sub pleural Emphysema [FS/2/2/2/1/7]

Transcribing his work has been a challenge I have never faced before, and I have a newfound appreciation for the patience and hardwork of an archivist. Smith’s handwriting, to say the least, is rather tricky! But after a few days, and then a few weeks I have cracked it. That satisfaction of becoming a specialist in one individual’s handwriting is strangely thrilling! Staring at one mystery word for an hour and triumphantly declaring “manually!! He means manually!!!” has probably caused my colleagues sitting near me a few headaches….

“was got up two or three times during the day in order to ease the lungs…” Extract from the case notes for Horse E-16 [FS/2/2/2/2/3]

At times his work left a bitter-sweet taste, as he describes horses who despite all odds cling to life. When reading his work it becomes clear he had a deep appreciation and respect for the animals in his care. A piece which has become a personal favorite of mine, comes from the folder on Fractures and Wounds. Horse E-16 while being treated:

“…suddenly wheeled round,

ran back then rushed forward, turned sharp and jumped a

Bamboo hen Coop and then started off at a mad gallop

towards the troop lines and bolted into the angle formed by

two walls dashed his head against the wall and lay doubled

Up.”

Smith includes a sketch of the horse, and states that the horse “with its characteristic facial expression enabled me to recall this case when I raised this in June 1927 namely 47 years after the event.” Despite all that time, and probably after hundreds of other horses had come under his care he remembered E-16.

Sketch of Horse E-16 [FS/2/2/2/2/3]

It truly has been an eye opening few months, and to have had the opportunity to work so closely with such wonderful materials has been a pleasure. I am so grateful to everyone at RCVS Knowledge. I hope the sources I have transcribed and digitized will be of use and potentially encourage individuals to take their own journey into these amazing resources.

by Claudia Watts, MA History, Kings College London

To explore these veterinary case notes yourselves, visit our Digital Collections website, or contact us to view the full collection in person.

RCVS Vet History Transcription Project

[Please note: Due to the high number of responses to this call for volunteers, we are currently unable to accept any more people onto the project. We hope to expand the project in the future, so please keep an eye on this blog for further opportunities.]

The Vet History team have been quiet on this blog for a while, but have been very busy behind the scenes with cataloguing and digitisation. Now that we are all working from home, and temporarily physically separated from our beloved historical collections, expect to hear from us more often!

First of all – a call for volunteers!

If you are interested in improving your reading of nineteenth century handwriting (or making a start!) then we want to hear from you!

Last year we digitised a large volume of letters written in 1840 in support of a petition (or memorial) calling for reformation of the teaching and examination of students at the Royal Veterinary College in London. This huge wave of support from over 200 veterinary surgeons across the country paved the way for the formation of the RCVS, and their being granted a Royal Charter in 1844.

A screenshot of the digitised letters written in support of Memorial to Governors of the Royal Veterinary College [RCVS/1/2]

Although everyone can now freely access these digitised letters on the Vet History website – they would be even more accessible if they were individually transcribed. We would love our audience to get involved, and also satisfy anyone who is hungry for some historical documents or to gain new research skills whilst self-isolating!

Digitised letter from J Stewart of Glasgow, beside a transcription of the letter.

Volunteers will be assigned individual letters to transcribe, and be provided with guidance documents for how to set out transcriptions, and support with interpreting tricky handwriting.

Completed transcriptions will be added to the Vet History website, and transcribers will be credited (with permission).

Please contact us via archives@rcvsknowledge.org if you would like to take part.

–Lorna–

Vet History PhD – Introducing Jane!

This is the first of a series of blog posts by PhD student Jane Davidson, who began her studies with RCVS Knowledge and the University of Kent in Autumn 2019. Click here for more information about this project, or follow Jane’s Twitter feed and hashtag #phdbythesea

Jane Davidson

Jane Davidson

I imagine that this period of change and disruption is making many people re-evaluate their life choices, and I’m one of them. I’m so happy to say that being immersed in veterinary history is the place I would want to be right now on lockdown. So it’s pretty fabulous that I’m doing a PhD on the professionalisation of animal medicine in the UK. The PhD aims to analyse how and why the medical treatment of animals came to be professionalised. This will involve identifying the reasons for, and effects of, the 1881 Act, which formally established the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ (RCVS) authority to distinguish between qualified and unqualified practitioners.

Seeing a life-changing tweet from RCVS Knowledge early last year brought together the slightly crazy path my career had been on. I read the initial proposal with interest, as I have been writing for and about the veterinary profession for some time. I checked the requirements for the PhD and I met the criteria, in a roundabout way. I did have a first degree in history, gained at Glasgow University as a young thing. I did have a level 7 qualification in my PgCert in Clinical Education, that I studied for while teaching clinical skills to vet nurses. Finally, I did have an interest in the veterinary profession, being a vet nurse, a veterinary blogger and all-round nosey historian at heart.

Digitised version of Charles Vial St Bel’s plan for a veterinary school in England – available to read on Vet History Digital Collections.

A summer of reading and writing followed, and I am now here in my garden doing much the same and loving every minute of it. I am fascinated by my findings so far, and am loving watching historical characters and situations come to life through my archive work. The connection with the people and places and events recorded by hand over 200 years ago feels very real. Noting the different handwriting, and sighing inwardly when Charles St Bel took the minutes of meetings (because of the hard work of deciphering his handwriting!) feels like I am among friends. St Bel was a lecturer from the first veterinary school in Lyon, who arrived in England with a plan to set up a similar school here. He met Granville Penn and together with the Odiham Agricultural Society created his vision with the London Veterinary College in 1791. Chatting with the great RCVS Knowledge team about ‘Charles’, ‘Fred’ and ‘Coleman’ with a warm familiarity helps with bringing these people to life.

Manuscript minutes of meetings of the Odiham Agricultural Society. whose work to advance knowledge of livestock management and breeding led towards formal veterinary education in Britain.

With the added pressures on the veterinary industry right now, I am missing clinical work and being part of a clinical team. Yet, right now, I oddly feel more connected with the veterinary profession through the people who were working in it 200 years ago. Their passions and desires jump from each page and I am proud to be here to share their stories.

–Jane–