1967 was a bad year for cattle farmers. When a deadly outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease swept across UK farms, over four million animals were slaughtered as a result of the disease. Families struggled to cope with the losses, and the economy took a hit from the halting of livestock trade – about £20 million was lost from disruption of trade with Argentina alone. One woman stood in the centre of the carnage to protect future farms and future people – and yet few people know the name Mary Brancker. A friend of my grandparents, I met her at the age of two – and though I remember little of the game of chase she played with me despite her being over 90 years old, the stories people tell of her have made me realise the importance of her impact on not only those in the local community, but also the whole veterinary profession.

When reading the book compiling memories of her life and work released by the Twycross Zoo Association (or tza) after her death, I was struck by how well-loved Brancker was to those that knew her. This particularly goes for those that worked alongside her in the veterinary industry. According to Samantha Cawthorn, family friend of Brancker, ‘being a vet wasn’t just a job to her, it was her life, and one that she was fiercely committed to’. Cawthorn’s mother had worked with Brancker in the surgery for years and knew how dedicated she was to the profession. Her impact on the local area of Leicestershire stems from her almost twenty years working at Twycross Zoo as the first female zoo vet in the country, and then further twenty-five years volunteering with the tza. She was one of the most dedicated and knowledgeable members of the organisation, working as a consultant to Twycross and regularly showing visitors around to talk about the animals, inspiring many with her brisk enthusiasm – including Emma Sheardown, as a child greatly inspired by working alongside Brancker at tza meetings, who says Brancker’s reply to the question ‘could I be a veterinary nurse’ resulted in her gaining a National Diploma in Animal Management. Brancker had a special interest in primates and big cats and worked closely with Twycross for decades to develop and promote animal welfare and research projects – this kind of conservation pioneering was the first of its kind. She was an expert in her field and had a deep connection with the animals she treated, with unique methods that saved lives during a flu outbreak at Twycross in the early 1960s – she found out what the chimpanzees’ favourite colour of smartie was, and ensured the pills they were given resembled it so that they would take the medication more easily. Her dedication continued right up to her retirement – she had taken the time to train up a successor so that she knew the animals would remain in good care. Even after her passing she continued to help young people with the Mary Brancker Bursary – she had always encouraged and helped students in animal-based subjects and so the tza set up the bursary in her name at Brooksby Melton College where they could receive help with projects, or with their final thesis. It has since been moved to Nottingham University Vet School where last year alone four students were awarded the bursary and used it to gain once-in-a-lifetime experiences such as traveling to Thailand to work with exotic animals. These experiences have confirmed the students’ interests in areas of the veterinary discipline that wouldn’t have been possible if not for Brancker’s inspiring nature.

But it’s not only local students that benefit from Mary Brancker’s contributions – it’s the whole of the UK, and the veterinary profession across the whole world. As the president of the British Veterinary Association in 1967, she coordinated the responses of around eight thousand veterinarians all over Britain during the 1967 foot and mouth outbreak, and had she not been at the forefront of it all, there would’ve been serious impacts on the British economy and livestock sector, with trade of livestock having been halted during the outbreak. She effectively contained the disease (there was only one recorded human transmission) by controlling the slaughter of sick livestock to protect future animals and people. And all this at a time when, upon turning up to a farm to treat animals, she would be regarded with nothing but suspicion until she could prove herself, being one of only a minority of women in the profession. Brancker reportedly did not consider herself to be a feminist, but her pioneering – being one of the first women to qualify for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, being the first female president of the British Veterinary Association – opened a gateway for women in the profession. Though the journey to equality in the industry is far from over, according to the British Veterinary Association itself, women now make up around 60% of practicing vets. Samantha Cawthorn notes that ‘It was obvious that [Mary Brancker] was a true advocate of veterinary science and of women working in this field’.

All of this and yet when you search ‘1967 foot and mouth outbreak’, Mary Brancker is not mentioned on the first page, nor the second, nor the third, etc. and her name isn’t well known in even the veterinary profession itself – when asked about inspirational female vets, five of the most successful female vets in the UK today (including the 2019 president of the BVA Northern Ireland Aurelie Moralis) did not mention Mary Brancker. In 2009 she made a twenty-five hour recording about her life for the national oral history collection in the British Library, and her involvement proved crucial to the project because of her eminence in the veterinary profession and because she cared deeply about its history. This contribution alone should surely cement her name in the collective human consciousness, for her work improving the industry, the role of women within it, and ultimately, the welfare of animals around the world.
 

Photograph: Mary Brancker CBE in Budapest (Credit: Martyhol, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)