Aileen Cust
Aileen Cust was the first female to practice as a veterinary surgeon in Ireland. She practised from Castlestrange, Athleague in County Roscommon.
Aileen Cust was born in 1868 in Cordangan Manor, County Tipperary. 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, 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. Cust nevertheless went on to practice in County Roscommon with William Augustine Byrne MRCVS, having received a personal recommendation from William Williams, and lived at Castlestrange near Athleague.