Page 48 - Eclipse - Autumn 2015

In honoured memory In honoured memory
John Bleby (1961)
Barrie Callaghan and Peter Lane write:
With the passing of John Bleby the veterinary profession has lost a most remarkable member. He was born
in 1932 in Lowestoft and on leaving school, he joined the army in the Royal Corps of Signals for his compulsory two-year National Service. After
his basic training he was selected
for a possible commission and was posted to Mons Of cer Cadet School from where he passed out as a commissioned of cer.
He entered the RVC in October 1953 and he remained an active of cer in the Territorial Army throughout his time there. He became President of the Students’ Union and President of the Association of Veterinary Students of Great Britain and Ireland.
After graduating he worked in large animal practice in Yorkshire, then
in companion animal medicine at Henderson and Keywood in Surbiton. Here he met his rst wife Rosemary, and his two daughters, Samantha and Georgina, were born subsequently. Following two years at Surbiton,
he was appointed Deputy Director
of the Medical Research Council’s (MRC) Laboratory Animals Centre (LAC) where he was much concerned with ways to reduce the numbers of animals used in laboratories. He was promoted to Director two years later. While holding this post, he held a number of other key roles including FAO Veterinary Consultant to Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Iran, Pakistan and Mozambique and WHO Veterinary Consultant to the National Institutes of Health in the USA and China.
The committees and councils on which he sat are too numerous to
list in full but include those of the Research Defence Society, the Comparative Medicine Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and the RVC. He was a member of the BVA European and Overseas Committee,
and the British Psychological Society Standing Advisory Committee on Standards of Psychological Research and Training Involving Animals. He was also a member of the Parliamentary and Scienti c Committee, serving as vice- chairman of its Science and Technology Group.
He was President of the Central Veterinary Society twice and the society’s representative on BVA Council and becoming the BVA’s longest serving Council member. In this role he successfully encouraged BVA Council to ban the practice of keeping sows
in sow stalls which are now a thing of the past in the UK and in parts of the EU. He also persuaded BVA Council to support the phasing out of quarantine regulations for imported dogs and cats which met considerable resistance. Such antagonism did not deter him because he always did what he thought was right and the result was passports for pets.
With changes in legislation regarding laboratory animals it became necessary for a cadre of veterinary surgeons to
be trained in this eld. John remained
a member of the staff of the MRC, but transferred to the RVC where he founded and organised a masters degree course in laboratory animal science. John was also a magistrate for many years and eventually became Chairman of the Surrey Magistrates.
During all of this time he retained his reserve army rank of captain. On one occasion he found himself sitting next to the Adjutant-General of the British Army at dinner. He took the opportunity to put the argument to the general
that the RAVC should have a Territorial Army unit. Such was the power of his persuasion that the general took the matter up at a higher level and soon after the Territorial Army unit was formed.
John became the unit’s Lieutenant Colonel in an incredibly short space of time – something which hadn’t happened since the Second World War. He served for periods in Cyprus, Hong Kong, Germany and in Northern Ireland during the troubles and was awarded the Territorial Decoration and the Northern Ireland Campaign Service Medal.
It was a great cause of sorrow for John that his rst marriage ended but he was fortunate to meet and marry Jayne, his second wife, who was a great support
to him and with whom he had a son, William. He and Jayne went on to start a company that measured the health pro le of laboratory animals in research institutes and universities.
Throughout all these years he was a dedicated and proud family man and
he always found time to be a much- loved husband and father. He enjoyed humour and convivial company. John was a patriot and he was compassionate, articulate, persistent, brave, resilient
in the face of adversity, and jolly good company. He always stood out from the crowd (particularly in his red Rolls Royce 999VET!).
His funeral service was held in a packed- out church in Surrey. His cof n was draped with the Union Flag, and his military busby was placed on the top. A guard of honour was formed by troopers from the Honourable Artillery Company and two buglers sounded the Last Post and Reveille.
Our sincere sympathies are extended to Jayne, to his children Samantha, Georgina and William and his other family members.
We also proudly remember:
Paul Bailey (1962), Eleanor Mitchell Barwick (1941), Michael John Cryer (1962), Richard Douglas Franklin (1943), Denis Harvey (1944), Thomas Hughes Ellis (1943), Idris Ifor Jones (1951), Sylvia Jones (1940), Frank Tudor Whitney Jordan (1941), Audrey Eileen Linzell (1943), Andrew Leonard Lomax (1967), John Luckhurst (1960), Kenneth Geoffrey Luckin (1950), Harold Dudley Mills (1946), Brian Mulcair, Hugh Patrick Murray (1944), Brendan Paterson (1978), Neil Anthony Phillips (1984), John Peter Powis (1969), Hugh Llewellyn Salmon (1979), Richard Shaw (1961), Dennis Leonard Smith (1961), Brian Geoffrey Tiedeman (1952), Paul Vos (1959), John Croft Wootton (1949)
and our other RVC Alumni and friends who are sadly no longer with us.