Australian Veterinary Association
Kendall Oration 2007
It is important to celebrate centenary milestones in veterinary science
Professor Ivan W Caple
The University of Melbourne
Dr Kersti Seksal, President of the Australian Veterinary Association and Dr Diane Sheehan, President-Elect, it is an honour to present the 15th Kendall Oration at this AVA conference in Melbourne. In 1964, Professor Douglas Charles Blood presented the 6th Kendall Oration in the year after the veterinary science course had been re-established at The University of Melbourne. When I entered the course at Melbourne in 1965 the late Dr Murray Pullar provided first year students with a history where veterinary education in Victoria was described as a three-act play.
There was a prelude of about 17 years from 1870 when Graham Mitchell commenced lobbying for a veterinary school in Melbourne, and particularly after the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease at Werribee in 1872. Mitchell was joined by William Tyson Kendall when he arrived in 1880, and they were finally rewarded when the first Veterinary Surgeons Act of Victoria was passed in December 1887, and the Melbourne Veterinary College commenced teaching in January 1888. The prelude was followed by the first and second acts which lasted for 40 years and produced 152 veterinarians. Then there was an interlude of 33 years. This was followed by the third act which has produced 40 graduating classes to the end of 2006. I was the third Dean to lead the third act after Professor Blood and Professor Ken Jubb.
The third act, which is still continuing, has produced 1,972 graduates in 44 years, and almost equal numbers of male and female veterinarians. In July this year, Professor Ken Hinchcliff arrives from Ohio State University to continue this leadership role.
In a 10-minute oration, only brief mention can be made about the feats of William Tyson Kendall who arrived in Melbourne in 1880, and is acknowledged as the founder of the veterinary profession in Australia.
This portrait of Kendall was commissioned by his students and painted by Frederick McCubbin in 1908, and has been at the University of Melbourne Veterinary School for nearly 100 years. Kendall’s brass plate was donated to the Australian Veterinary Association by his eldest son Ernest in 1936. Both the portrait and the brass plate are treasured items at the Melbourne Veterinary School. The brass plate has been in the Kendall Hall dining room at Werribee since 1967 when the Veterinary Clinical Centre was opened by Premier Henry Bolte on 27 November, just before the first class graduated from the course.
Kendall by his own initiative, intellect and drive and in response to many challenges he had to overcome at different stages in his life, set very high standards on which to build the Australian veterinary profession. Kendall had the most important attributes for a veterinarian, including the attribute of empathy: empathy for animals, empathy for people, and empathy for the environment. All of Kendall’s work was done to the best international standards of his time. Kendall by his deeds excelled in teaching, in research through the conduct of disease investigations, and in technology transfer through his clinical work, providing training to farmers and animal handlers, and in fostering the development of a professional association. Sometimes he had to lobby politicians and industry leaders. Kendall is credited with instigating the first Royal Commission into Tuberculosis in Australia.
Kendall was fortunate to marry Elizabeth Park, an educated woman with whom he had six children – five sons and a daughter. Four of his sons became veterinarians; the fifth became a civil engineer.
We have little information about his daughter Eleanor, pictured here in a photograph now on the records of the Australian War Memorial. She is shown in this portrait with three of her brothers who were veterinarians. Sister Eleanor Jane Kendall must have had similar attributes to her Lieutenant-Colonel brothers because it is recorded that she also received a "Mention in Despatches" for her nursing services during the First World War.
The Australian Veterinary Profession has a rich history of achievements, and it is important to celebrate them. I have been fortunate that my life span has enabled me to share in several centenary celebrations in veterinary science in Australia, and I would like to mention a couple.
In 1988 we celebrated the centenary of the establishment of the first veterinary surgeons board of Victoria in 1888, and the commencement of teaching at the Melbourne Veterinary College established by William Tyson Kendall in Brunswick Fitzroy.
These photographs show Professor Blood unveiling a plaque on the wall of the old Melbourne Veterinary College building in Brunswick St Fitzroy when it was registered with the National Heritage Trust of Victoria in 1986. Standing behind Professor Blood is Dr AK (Sandy) Sutherland who presented the Kendall Oration in 1994. This historic building has been extensively renovated and restored over the past decade, but the plaque is still firmly fixed on the wall.
A photograph published in a book written by Professor Blood outlining the recent history of the School of Veterinary Science led to a centenary celebration in 1991.
This photograph shows a much younger Ivan Caple with Professor Virginia Studdert, the first female veterinarian appointed to a Chair at an Australian Veterinary School, standing in front of Kendall’s portrait. At the graduation ceremony in 1991, I was able to ask the new graduates to stand, charge their glasses, and join in a toast to 100 years of training veterinarians in Australia. At the time Virginia Studdert asked me: "Where did you get that information from?"
The lists of GMVC graduates from the Melbourne Veterinary College (1891-1909) and the BVSc graduates from University of Melbourne Veterinary School (1909-1928) had been published in the first edition of Albeitera, the journal of the Veterinary Students Society of Victoria in 1964. Dr Murray Pullar also provided first year students in 1965 with an analysis of the outcomes of what the first 152 BVSc graduates did in their careers.
The graduation list from the Melbourne Veterinary College had the names of Kendall’s four sons, (underlined in red) and the name of the first female veterinarian to qualify from the Melbourne Veterinary College in 1906 – Miss B.B Reid.
In 2006 we set about to organize another important centenary celebration in veterinary science, and with the advances in communication technology and the internet planned a virtual honour roll. This was similar to the Roll of Honour prepared for the internet by Professor Virginia Studdert for the veterinary graduates and staff of the Melbourne Veterinary College and the University of Melbourne Veterinary School who had served in the First World War [http://www.vet.unimelb.edu.au/honour]
Belle Bruce Reid’s academic record was obtained from the minutes of the Veterinary Surgeons Board of Victoria, and this provided the first example that female veterinarians may be able to perform better in a four year veterinary science course than male veterinarians!
On 28 November 2006, exactly 100 years after Belle Reid was registered with the Veterinary Board of Victoria, the Belle Bruce Reid Honour Roll went live on the internet [http://www.vet.unimelb.edu.au/medal]
Citations for 100 female veterinarians who qualified in Australia or arrived from overseas have been listed on this roll to show the very significant contributions made to the Australian veterinary profession by its outstanding female members. As many of those named are still living, their citations will be updated as these female veterinarians progress through their careers. The citations will be of great assistance to the increasing numbers of female graduates joining the profession over the coming years.
The future of the profession is bright with the entry of 614 students into the six veterinary schools in Australia in 2007.
Veterinary students are the future of the veterinary profession. In 2013 when the next AVA Annual Conference is likely to be held in Melbourne there will be over 3,000 veterinary students studying at the six Australian veterinary schools .
Many of the students come from overseas and at least 15 countries are represented amongst the undergraduates in 2007. The veterinary profession has grown to be much respected through its many contributions to Australian society over the past century, and the future graduates will extend this respect to the international community.
The many challenges faced by the veterinary schools, the students and the future graduates will be no less daunting than those faced by Kendall and the graduates from the Melbourne Veterinary College during their lifetimes. There are many opportunities for the profession to be closely involved in veterinary education and lifelong learning through interacting with the veterinary schools and their students.
In closing, it is pertinent to quote some words of William Tyson Kendall that were included in the first Kendall Oration delivered by Dr WAN Robertson in 1930 because they are still very relevant today:
"Never before has the veterinary profession been in such a position to show its utility as now. Better trained and better equipped with all the scientific knowledge gained by systematic research, it has in its power the means of preventing, suppressing, and eradicating animal diseases, and assisting in ameliorating the sufferings of man."
I thank the Australian Veterinary Association for the honor of presenting the Kendall Oration at the 2007 AVA Conference in Melbourne.
Professor Ivan Caple
The University of Melbourne
14 May 2007
