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- BEAUTY
AND THE BEASTS:
- Women
pioneers of the Australian veterinary profession
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- Australia's
first qualified woman veterinarian was Belle Bruce Reid who graduated
after four years training in 1906 from the first veterinary school
in Australia - W.T. Kendall's private Melbourne Veterinary College
in Fitzroy. She was the first and only woman graduate from that
school and was unanimously granted full registration on 21 November
by the first regulating body for the profession - the Veterinary
Surgeons Board of Victoria. Australia was far more tolerant of
women in this profession than, for example, England where Aileen
Cust had graduated in 1900 and practised in Ireland, but was not
officially recognised until 1922. In the USA, the first woman
veterinarian had graduated in 1903.
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- Between
1922 and 1940 the first women graduated from the three veterinary
schools in Australia at the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney
and Queensland.
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- The
1960's saw the first post graduate degrees being awarded to women;
and for the first time women were appointed to the Veterinary
Surgeons' Board. The 100th woman graduated from Sydney during
the 1970's but the next decade witnessed a complete reversal of
the gender balance with the graduation of the 450th female veterinarian.
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- The
1980's also saw the first women graduate from Murdoch University,
Australia's fourth veterinary school that had opened the previous
decade. At the same time, the first women executives and fellows
of the Australian Veterinary Association were appointed.
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- In
the 1990's, the first Aboriginal women enrolled in Veterinary
studies at Murdoch University; and Virginia Studdert became the
first woman appointed as a full Professor and the first appointed
to a chair in an Australian Veterinary School.
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- Some
first women in the Australian veterinary
profession...
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 - Courtesy
of Mr WBC Mackie, Vermont,
VIC
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- BELLE
(ISABEL) BRUCE REID (?-1946)
- First
woman to qualify in Veterinary Science, she
received her diploma from Melbourne Veterinary
College, Australia's first veterinary school in
1906.
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 - Courtesy
of Mrs Jill Sutherland (née
Keats)
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- MARGARET
KEATS (1895-1970)
- The
first female Bachelor of Veterinary Science
graduated from the University of Melbourne in
1922, later becoming the first woman
government-employed veterinarian when made Stock
Inspector at Gonn Crossing on the Murray
River.
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 - Courtesy
of Dr Patricia Abbott (née
Littlejohn)
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- PATRICIA
LITTLEJOHN (b1913)
- First
woman graduate from the University of Sydney's
Veterinary School in 1935, she established a
career as demonstrator and pathologist in
Australia, New Guinea and England.
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 - Courtesy
of the late Mr Ivan
Moncur
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- NORMA
MONCUR (?-1971)
- South
Australia's first non-graduate woman
veterinarian was granted registration in 1938
under the amended Veterinary Surgeons' Act of SA
enabling some basic veterinary assistance in
this State's rural areas.
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 - N.
Martin/The Advertiser,
Adelaide
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- M.E.
(PEG) CHRISTIAN (b1920)
- First
veterinarian to establish a private small animal practice in the
Northern Territory; she practiced part-time in Alice Springs from
1948-1951. Later she helped pioneer the development of Wombaroo,
a replacement milk formula for orphaned marsupials.
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 - NT
News Services Ltd
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- JAN
HILLS
- First
veterinarian to set up a full-time practice in the Northern Territory;
she opened for business in 1964, servicing Darwin, Alice Springs,
Katherine and Gove in the early days of their development.
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