Posts

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 […]

The Quarterly Journal of Veterinary Science in India and Army Management

Cataloguing the Correspondence of Henry Gray

As the RCVS Knowledge Archives and Digitisation assistant, my main duties are to scan the historical material, upload it to our Digital Collections website and take part in the promotion of the collection. In recent months, I have worked on a side project: cataloguing the personal correspondence and research papers of veterinary surgeon Henry Gray (1865-1939). One of the […]

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 […]

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 […]

Burying a horse at sea

All aboard the SS Templemore

‘We embarked on Friday 10th November, but owing to bad weather did not leave L/pool [Liverpool] until 12.30 noon on 12th November’ so reads an entry in a small notebook which is part of one of the treasures of our archives – the Sir Frederick Smith Collection. Smith sailed for South Africa  on the 12 November 1899 with […]

Entry for July 1916 from The story of Romsey Remount Depot

Your horse belongs to the army now – part two

In the second instalment of our two part post on army horses in the First World War we will take a look at the scale of the operations of the Army Remount Service and in particular the work of the Romsey Remount Depot. The  acquisition of horses for the war effort was an enormous operation.  In his […]

Paintings on display as part of the war horse exhibition

Your horse belongs to the army now – part one

The popularity of Michael Morpurgo’s book War Horse, the success of the stage adaptation and now the release of Steven Spielberg’s film has brought the role horses played in the First World War to the public’s attention. Joey, the main ‘character’ of War Horse, belongs to Albert, the young son of a farmer.  He is […]