Connie Ford (1912-1998)
In 1970 Connie Ford was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s Honours List in recognition of her long career in the study of disease and infertility in cattle. It was a just reward for her dedication to researching the relationship between animal health and environmental factors such as geology, water quality and mineral intake, as well as acknowledging her skills in communicating her theories. To Ford it may have also served as recognition of the struggles and prejudices she faced, especially in the early years of her career.
Connie Ford was born in Charlton, southeast London in 1912, and graduated from the Royal Veterinary College London in 1933, a time when there were still few women in the profession. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Connie was not from a wealthy background. Indeed, her enrolment in college was made possible thanks to a scholarship from the London County Council (now the Greater London Authority). As she tells a friend in a letter of 12 August 1942 “I scraped through in four years and did without text-books and managed with practically no extra-mural teaching from practitioners, but even so my family’s resources were severely strained”.
Upon graduation, Ford felt that few veterinary practices would welcome a female vet to the team. She tells a friend in a 1941 draft letter “As you may have noticed most of the women [graduates] either marry or set up alone in small animal practice.” She therefore decided to go it alone. Again, without the financial backing of a wealthy family, Ford had to look for other sources of funding to achieve her plan. Fortunately, she was able to acquire a loan from the Connolly Memorial Fund, a charity set up to give financial help to former pupils of the Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham Girls School. This enabled her to purchase premises in New Eltham, not far from her family home.
The practice proved modestly successful, but it seems Ford only ever saw it as a temporary measure. Her main interest was always in agricultural veterinary work. By 1941, having repaid her loan Connie planned to sell her practice and begin a postgraduate DVSM. Unfortunately, the effects of World War Two made finding a buyer difficult, and by the time a sale was finalised her intended course had been cancelled.
Nevertheless, in September 1941 Connie gained a junior research post, at a government laboratory in Wye, Kent. Again, her ambition was soon thwarted. After only nine weeks she was asked to resign. Her supervisor told her she was absent-minded and inaccurate in her work. Any fault of Ford’s is perhaps understandable – over the previous months she had been involved in a serious car accident and her family home had been damaged in an air raid. She had also been caring for her sick father. Indeed, she was dismissed from her role on the day she returned to work after his funeral. All these issues were clearly taking their toll on Connie’s mental health and her work. In a letter of 1st March 1942 looking back on this period Connie refers to “my breakdown”.
A few of Ford’s many field and laboratory notebooks
This dismissal left Connie with little experience in the work she was interest in and no immediate hope of advancement. With no current occupation she enlisted as an Air Raid Precautions ambulance driver in nearby Ashford, but the long periods of inactivity had a negative effect on her health. On her doctor’s advice Ford got herself released from this work and went to recuperate at a friend’s house in Glasgow. It was here that Ford was inspired to join the Women’s Land Army (WLA) and began work on a farm near Dumbarton at the end of March 1942. As well as wanting to help the war effort, Ford had another motive for this choice. She had previously had job applications rejected on the grounds that such physical labour was deemed unsuitable for a woman. As she told a friend in a letter of 7 July 1942, “The fact that I have since served in the WLA for 4 months should stop them from thinking I am still weakly”. Her correspondence from this time shows she thrived in this environment, despite being assigned predominantly arable work. Although the farm she worked on had a dairy herd, the farmer would not allow her to do any of her own research on his cattle.
Having been told by the farmer that she would not be needed after the autumn of 1942, Ford began applying for research roles again. In July 1942 she was accepted for another junior position, this time assisting in the veterinary research laboratory at the Midland Agricultural College at Sutton Bonington, Leicestershire. Although only a temporary position, it finally gave her some useful experience towards her long-term ambitions. There followed a similar temporary position for the Veterinary Investigation Service at the University of Liverpool meaning that by 1944 Ford was gaining both professional achievements and financial stability. In keeping with her socialist principles Ford chose to celebrate her success by helping others and gave a generous donation to the Connolly Memorial Fund which had been so helpful to her in setting up her practice.
Ford returned to the laboratories at Sutton Bonington for much of 1946 and 1947. Then in early 1948 she reached a step closer to her goal when she was offered the position of Assistant Veterinary Investigation Officer at the University of Nottingham School of Agriculture. As part of this role she was sent to Hexham, Northumberland, to undertake research on bovine sterility. She describes this in her correspondence as “…messy work, done on farms in the open air and I love it, though most people can’t think why”. On completion of her course Ford became a regional Sterility Officer, this time at the opposite end of the country, at the Government’s laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey.
Ford attended many events and collected a multitude of professional papers
It was not until early 1951, ten years after selling her practice, that Ford became a Veterinary Investigation Officer. She was based in the familiar world of Sutton Bonington, with responsibilities across the East Midlands agricultural district. Ford had finally achieved her ambition and would remain in this role until her retirement in 1972. Ford’s archive includes many documents from this time, including her research notebooks. These detail her research into disease and fertility in cattle, and her experiments in adding minerals to their feed. There are also many files concerning specific farms within the East Midlands as she investigates possible links between fertility and environmental factors such as soil type, pasture management and water supply. Additionally, Ford developed her skills at communicating her research. Her paper on Nutritional Factors and Bovine Infertility in the East Midlands was published in the British Veterinary Journal in May 1956, which led to her delivering talks on the subject of links between diet and fertility from 1957 onwards. Her 1964 paper on Infertility in Farm Animals in Britain was also very well received across the profession.
Ford continued to develop her network of contacts, and her correspondence tells us much about the workings of private and public sector agricultural organisations during the mid-Twentieth Century. She was an active member of the British Veterinary Association, the Association of Veterinary Teachers and Research Workers, and the Society for the Study of Animal Breeding. Ford’s archive includes many working papers for each organisation. Similarly, Ford was attending many external events and collected research papers written by her contemporaries, mainly related to fertility and disease prevention in cattle. As such Ford’s collection is a fascinating snapshot of many aspects of the profession in the mid Twentieth Century.
Ford’s choir sang at the 1949 World Festival of Youth and Students in Budapest
Ford retired in 1972 but continued to attend events and conferences until a few months before her death in February 1998, aged 85. Away from her main research Ford also published a biography of Aleen Cust, the first female Member of the RCVS, a work for which the RCVS awarded her the JT Edwards Memorial Medal in 1992. Connie also filled her retirement with many other interests and activities including choral singing, sailing and socialist groups, as well as publishing four volumes of her poetry. In her will Connie left a generous donation to the RCVS to help others training for a veterinary profession.
Connie Ford’s papers have now been fully catalogued and are available for public consultation. Descriptions of these papers can be found on our online catalogue, available here: https://www.rcvsarchives.org/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=CF
A further collection of her literary papers is held by the University of Nottingham. Catalogue descriptions available here: https://mss-cat.nottingham.ac.uk/Calmview/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=CF&pos=1
Bridges’ diagram entitled Explanation of the Five Views of the Foot
This illustration comes from the book No Foot, No Horse by Jeremiah Bridges, first published in 1751 by J Brindley of New Bond Street, London. The illustration shows the locations of thirty-two common complaints suffered by the horse’s foot. These include disorders such as Sand Cracks, Channel-Nails and the horrendous sounding Loosened Hoof. It’s thought that with this publication Bridges became the first Englishman to fully describe the anatomy of the horse’s foot. Bridges is also believed to be the first to precisely define navicular syndrome, a disease of the navicular bone and surrounding soft tissue which could ultimately cause a horse to go lame.
In his preface Bridges outlines the purposes of the book. He begins by explaining the anatomy and physiology of the foot. This he does under twenty-six headings, each covering a different anatomical part such as Os Imum Pedis, the pedal bone, Ligamentum Annulare, the annular ligament and Venae, the veins. Following this Bridges discusses the various types of feet, explaining differences in colour, shape and consistency, plus his thoughts on regional variations. Finally, he gives an account of common diseases of the foot and his suggestions for remedies. Many of these medicines came in the form of powder balls – cholic ball, fever ball, etc. To make these into a paste Bridges recommended using what he describes as “fresh, wholesome human urine”. A strange solvent perhaps, but Bridges declared it beneficial for the delicate salts it contains, the acidity of which accelerates the work of the medicine by stimulating the stomach.
No Foot, No Horse includes an advertisement for Bridges’ medicine shop in Orange Street, Westminster
Little is known of Bridges’ personal life, such as his dates of birth and death, details of his family or his origins. Professionally, in No Foot, No Horse, he describes himself as a farrier and anatomist, and we know he had a medicine shop, as this is advertised towards the end of the book. Frederick Smith in his 1923 book The Early History of Veterinary Literature Volume 2 states “…his work bears evidence that he was not an armchair author”. Smith verifies this by stating that the structure of Bridges’ book “…was put together in his odd moments”; that his writing work had to fit in around his day job. The book’s anatomical dissertation is a result of Bridges’ own dissections (in the preface he states “I have faithfully followed the knife, not pinning my faith upon another’s sleeve”), and it is believed he presented an annual course of lectures on the subject of horse anatomy, possibly delivered on his shop premises.
His shop was located at the Bucephalus Head, on Orange Street, Westminster – Bucephalus being the name of Alexander the Great’s horse. Bridges’ name does not appear in the volumes of property rate books for this period held at the City of Westminster Archives. This suggests he leased rather than owned his premises. Orange Street would have been an ideal location for a shop specialising in the treatment of horses. Neighbouring to the north was Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square), an area of wealthy townhouses, including the homes of artists William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds. We can assume the affluent inhabitants regularly used horse-drawn transport.
To the south of the shop was the Great Mews which occupied what is now Trafalgar Square. This was the meeting point of several major roads, and, as with today, it would have been a busy centre for traffic. Indeed, part of this mews was taken up by an extensive stable block, described by the writer James Ralph as ‘…a very grand and noble building’ in his 1734 work A Critical Review of the Public Buildings. Bridges’ shop therefore had wealthy people and their horses to the north, and a busy passing place for equine transport to the south. The hubbub of horse-powered London was all around him.
Detail from Pine and Tinney’s 1749 map of Westminster. Orange Street is marked in green.
Not all Bridges’ advice in the book required the purchase of medicine, despite the fact that such sales must have made up a good proportion of his income. In No Foot, No Horse, he is critical of those who “…practice by rote, and give doses prescribed by a recipe stuffed with ingredients they know not the nature of.” Many of his recommendations lean more towards nutrition. For horses suffering fever he suggests a diet of flags (yellow irises) and grain (“I have known several horses cured by this regimen, with very little assistance of medicine.”). Similarly, horses suffering from distemper should be fed gruel or milk pottage to give them strength. Bridges recommends keeping the gruel warm by storing it in a stone container and leaving it inside a warm dunghill.
Smith describes Bridges as being without cruelty in his treatment of horses, that he “…refers in feeling terms to his patients”. Bridges was opposed to excessive bleeding at a time when the technique of venesection was common practice, and advocated the importance of good standards in nursing, saying we should accept no excuses for its neglect. Smith sums up Bridges by saying “His observations on purging, bleeding, nursing and the avoidance of drugs do honour to his judgement and wisdom” and he considers Bridges to be “…too advanced in his views to influence public opinion, and his work would probably have been of greater effect had he lived forty years later.” This perhaps explains why No Foot, No Horse ran for only two editions (in 1751 and 1752). Indeed, Bridges intended to write further volumes, concluding his preface with the hope that “If this essay meets with a kind reception, I propose going through the whole anatomy.” Sadly, these additional books seem not to have materialised, and his great ambition was thwarted by an industry unwilling to subscribe to his forward-thinking theories.
Bridges’ book is available to read here: https://vethistory.rcvsknowledge.org/bridges-jeremiah-no-foot-no-horse-an-essay-on-the-anatomy-of-the-foot-of-that-noble-and-useful-animal-a-horse-1752/
At the RCVS Archives we are always on the lookout for interesting documents to add to our collections. Recently we acquired two small but appealing archives, given to us by RCVS members.
Olwen’s casenotes occasionally included her drawings
In February an MRCVS from Cardiff contacted us offering to donate an item he first discovered when he purchased his practice in 1983. It’s a casebook compiled by Olwen James (1914-1974) between 1936 and 1939 during her time as a student at the Glasgow Veterinary College. Olwen graduated in July 1939, and appears on our list as the 113th woman to qualify as a veterinary surgeon since Aleen Cust became the first recognised female veterinary surgeon in December 1922. Olwen was also the eighth woman to qualify from Glasgow.
Olwen James’s name on the RCVS Roll of Members, 1939
Olwen used her casebook to record each of the animals she treated during her course, which totalled 114 cases. For each animal she noted details of the patient (breed, gender, approximate age), her examination of its ailments, plus her diagnosis and subsequent treatment. Occasionally Olwen draws an illustration of the problem or plots a graph monitoring the patient’s condition. Ailments range from lymphangitis in a bay gelding to streptococcus mastitis in a Guernsey cow, plus she successfully performs an ovariotomy on a young cat, operates on a spaniel with a melanoma and castrates a Hereford bull. Her casebook is therefore an interesting window into the work students undertook and the recommended treatments at this time.
After graduation Olwen spent most of her working life in Cardiff. She established her practice in the Gabalfa area of the city, where she worked for over thirty years. Olwen was not the first female veterinary surgeon in the Cardiff area. Mary Farman graduated from London in December 1936 (number 77 on the list of female graduates) and joined a practice set up by Leonard Watson in the nearby town of Rumney. Olwen’s casebook joins our collection as document reference OJ/1.
An example page of accounts from one of Christopher’s ledgers
Our next acquisition concerns Christopher Jolley (1919-1976) who graduated from Trinity College Dublin in July 1945. He initially practiced from his parents’ home in Glenealy, Co. Wicklow, before moving to the Bollarney South area of Wicklow town where he practiced between 1947 and 1958. He later worked for the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture and finished his career in Inverness. His archive was kindly donated to us by his son, himself an MRCVS.
Christopher’s archive dates from his time in Wicklow town. It includes a small handwritten notebook containing recipes for a range of treatments such as foot rot in cattle, hysteria in dogs and what to give a young calf with a cough. There’s also a recipe for a treatment for ringworm using linseed oil which apparently worked best when applied with a warm paint brush or a rag on a stick.
Christopher’s unusual use for a warm paint brush
The rest of Christopher’s archive consists of three large ledgers, detailing the accounts of individual clients around Co. Wicklow. A large portion of these were farmers, and Christopher was often required to make around twenty calls each day. According to his son, Christopher needed to replace his car around every six months, such was the high milage involved driving to and from clients along country roads. It’s believed these account books were maintained by Christopher’s wife, Dr Jean Hayes Jolley, herself a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. Each ledger entry gives us the client’s name and address plus details of treatments carried out over the years, including their cost. Christopher’s notebook is document reference CJ/1 and the three ledgers are references CJ/2 to CJ/4.
Both Christopher’s archive and Olwen’s casebook add to our understanding of domestic and agricultural veterinary treatment in the mid C.20th. We’d like to acquire more records of veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses from previous generations, to preserve the evidence of past practices. Documents such as client ledgers, work diaries and recipe books will help us build a picture of the evolution of veterinary practice.
If you have any documents you’re willing to donate to the RCVS archive please contact us at archives@rcvsknowledge.org.
One of Best’s advertising notices from 1902
Misdeeds contrary to the 1881 Veterinary Surgeons Act came in many forms, from employing unqualified people to the mis-certification of sick horses. Similarly, the idea of advertising was seen as an ‘ungentlemanly’ activity, as it was felt veterinary surgeons should rely on their skills and good reputation alone.
This advertising notice dates from 1902 and was created for James Best, a veterinary surgeon practising in the North Yorkshire village of Thornton-le-Dale. Best had details of his services printed on paper and mounted onto card. There’s a short piece of string at the top so it could be hung up on display. Unfortunately, the item has since broken into three pieces – it appears the poster has been folded into three, and these folds have weakened over time. Back in 1902 this advertisement proved controversial for Best.
Best graduated from Edinburgh in April 1887 and began to practise in Great Habton, North Yorkshire. In 1902 he relocated to the nearby village of Thornton-le-Dale. His surgery was on High Street, the main road running through the village. Within a few months of arriving, Best arranged for several advertising notices to be placed around the neighbouring market town of Pickering.
However, an RCVS byelaw (then known as Byelaw113) stated the creation of adverts “…relating to their professional attainments or abilities or charges …amounts to conduct disgraceful in a professional respect…”. Best’s actions were brought to the attention of RCVS Council using a Registration Committee form dated 3 November 1902. From information contained in the form it seems the author was a local veterinary surgeon named Randal Copeland Bell. Our Registers tell us that Bell graduated from the Royal Veterinary College in 1899 and himself only moved to Pickering earlier in 1902 having initially practised in Scarborough.
James Best’s graduation entry in the Roll of Members, 1887
Bell states he is aware of three advertisements left in Pickering: one in the window of a private house, and two others displayed in hotels in the town – the Black Swan and the White Swan. The notice in our archive was taken by Bell from the White Swan and sent to the Committee. Bell sounds indignant, writing that Best “…has not only used the fact that he is well known to the farmers and others in the district as a means to obtaining their work but has also advertised and started a branch office”. Local trade directories for this time list many farmers and cattle dealers in the area, and Best’s adverts must have felt like a threat to Bell’s livelihood.
Soon afterwards Best was contacted by the RCVS. In his response dated 7 November, Best gives his “…sincerest assurance, my heartfelt desire is to work in the interests of the profession [and] to look upon the laws of the Council…” But he also expresses his surprise at these events and asks “By whom is there any complaint made[?] Is it professionally or has it been some ill-disposed person or persons”. Best is perhaps concerned for his local reputation, and, like Bell, has his livelihood to consider. Presumably the RCVS did not disclose Bell’s name but, even so, apart from Best and Bell, the only other veterinary surgeon registered in the area at this time was the retired gentleman whose practice Bell took over. Best must have known of Bell’s existence and considered him the possible instigator of this grievance.
By 14 January 1903, Best is responding again to the RCVS, with a letter that tells us something of how the RCVS dealt with the matter. It appears the Registration Committee asked for written assurance that Best had stopped his advertising and taken down the notices. Though Best makes the former assurance, he has not checked whether any of the “dozen cards” are still in place. Theoretically, therefore, he is still advertising his services. In this letter he again raises the issue of the instigator stating “I am informed on good authority that a professional neighbour is reporting those things and publicly talking how he will have the cards abolished.” Bell is his nearest professional neighbour, so Best may have had Bell in mind.
The White Swan Hotel, Pickering, taken in 2019 (Author: Jim Osley).
Best also uses his 14 January letter to justify his activities, questioning how his actions differ from “…professional gentlemen writing to papers & giving both public information & treatment”. He gives the example of a recent lecture by a Colonel Steel who in answer to a question from the audience offered to visit their home and take a look at their animals. Best states “…it is all very well but it appears a many of us isolated mere existing beings must run risk of infringing Byelaw 113 or else starve.” Perhaps the difference in these cases is that Best’s advertisements are deliberate and unambiguous. He is touting for trade, attempting to widen his geographical reach beyond Thornton-le-Dale. The contemporary Council minute book shows there was at least one other case of unethical advertising being considered at this time, so Best was not alone in testing the limits of good behaviour in this way.
Since the introduction of the Veterinary Surgeons Act in 1881, the RCVS and its disciplinary committee investigated over 500 examples of advertising including newspaper adverts, circulars and excessive signage. These cases noticeably dropped off after 1965 when such marketing seems to have been considered less of an issue.
Best seems to have incurred no further penalty, and continued his Thornton-le-Dale practice until his death in May 1923. Similarly, Bell remained in Pickering until 1912, when he moved to Australia to work as Chief Veterinary Inspector at the Department of Public Health in Sydney. Therefore, from the initial incident in 1902, Best and Bell spent a further ten years working in neighbouring communities. We can only wonder whether the two ever met and what animosity remained.
