Aleen Cust
| Aleen Cust | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Aleen Isobel Cust 7 February 1868 County Tipperary, Ireland |
| Died | 29 January 1937 (aged 68) Jamaica |
| Occupation | Veterinary surgeon |
| Known for | First woman veterinary surgeon in the British Isles |
Aleen Isobel Cust (7 February 1868 – 29 January 1937) was an Anglo-Irish veterinary surgeon. She was born and began her career in Ireland. In 1922 she became the first female veterinary surgeon to be recognised by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Aleen Cust was born in 1868 in Cordangan Manor, County Tipperary. Her father Sir Leopold Cust, 2nd Baronet was the grandson of Brownlow Cust, 1st Baron Brownlow, and worked as a land agent to the Smith-Barry family. Her mother Charlotte Sobieske Isabel (née Bridgeman) was the daughter of Vice-Admiral Charles Orlando Bridgeman, and granddaughter of Orlando Bridgeman, 1st Earl of Bradford and Sir Henry Chamberlain, 1st Baronet.
The fourth of six children, she enjoyed the outdoors as a child, and when asked about her future she claimed "a vet was my reply ever and always."
She began training as a nurse at London Hospital, but gave it up to become a veterinary surgeon. Following the death of her father in 1878, Major Shallcross Fitzherbert Widdington, her guardian, encouraged her to pursue an education and funded her attendance at William Williams's New Veterinary College in Edinburgh. As her mother was acting as a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, Cust enrolled under the name A.I. Custance to avoid any embarrassment for her family. She completed her veterinary studies in 1897, winning the gold medal for zoology, but was denied permission to sit the final examination and consequently was not admitted as a member of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). She challenged this in the Court of Session, seeking to overturn the decision of the RCVS examination committee, but the court declined to rule on the basis that the RCVS was not domiciled in Scotland. She refrained from legal action in London, perhaps due to the potential cost, or potential social embarrassment to her mother.
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