Page 50 - Eclipse - Autumn 2015

In honoured memory
Creating a Lasting Legacy
Alumni and friends of the RVC have been helping the next generation of veterinary professionals for centuries.
Scholarships and bursaries have always been a way to enable universities and colleges to help students ease the nancial burden of studying and throughout the RVC’s 225 year history, alumni and supporters have helped to fund such awards.
Clement Stephenson Scholarship
Clement Stephenson graduated from the RVC in 1858. Upon his death in 1918 he left in his will a sum of £5,000 (the equivalent of £310,000 today) to the RVC. This was to endow a Clement Stephenson Scholarship for RVC students and was established to advance knowledge of the cause, prevention or cure of disease in animals.
Clement Stephenson was a pioneer in his eld and one of the rst local authority veterinary inspectors in the country, appointed in 1856. He was an expert in animal disease control and he and his fellow veterinary inspectors advanced our understanding of animal health in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Clement also left money in his will to fund a Chair in Comparative Pathology and Bacteriology at Durham University and to help set up what is now Newcastle University School of Agriculture.
The RVC fund is still in existence today and continues to bene t the next generation of veterinary professionals nearly 100 years on by providing awards for research opportunities at the RVC.
This is one of the ways in which gifts in wills can bene t many students in to the future.
This painting of Clement Stephenson has recently been restored by Rory Johnson and hangs in the Clement Stephenson Lecture Theatre at Newcastle University School of Agriculture.
Research Studentships
In 2014, the RVC was honoured to receive a legacy from Mrs Patricia Wiggins to support our research work. Mrs Wiggins was devoted to her Griffon Bruxellois dogs and when her husband died she decided to leave the majority of her estate to bene t animals with legacies to a number of animal and veterinary charities.
The RVC is always keen to support our students’ research activities and so used the legacy to fund six summer research
studentships, two in 2015 and four in 2016. This year the studentships were awarded to Georgia Nicholson-Thomas (BVetMed1) who was supervised by Professor Dominic Wells, and Samantha Vicarage (BSc2) who was supervised by Dr Charlotte Lawson.
Georgia’s project is looking at optimising bre typing of isolated muscle bres in solution, and Samantha is looking at the functional analysis of microvesicles released from human macrophages during uptake of saturated free fatty acid in vitro.
Alumni Tribute Fund
Our Alumni Tribute Fund offers you a way to donate in memory of friends or colleagues you have sadly lost, celebrating their life through a gift to future generations of RVC students.
From funding the development of state-of-the-art teaching facilities to offering life-changing opportunities to our students through scholarships and bursaries, your gift to the Alumni Tribute Fund will help future students get the most out of their time at the RVC and help us remember those we have lost.
To nd out how you can donate in memory of someone you have lost, please call 01707 666039 or email nmaddock@rvc.ac.uk