Belle Reid

Isabelle Bruce "Belle" Reid (21 December 1883 – 13 December 1945) was an Australian veterinarian. She was the first woman to qualify as a veterinarian in Australia, and established a practice in Balwyn, Victoria.

Early life Reid was born in 1883 in Melbourne, Victoria, and was the youngest of ten children. Her mother was Mary Jane Clancy and her father Robert Reid, born in Scotland, was a wealthy merchant and Victorian politician. She grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Balwyn where she developed an interest in the care of animals, especially horses, and attended school at Genazzano FCJ College. She originally aspired to pursue a career in singing, but her parents considered such a pursuit inappropriate for a woman of her class, so Reid enrolled in the Melbourne Veterinary College instead in 1902.

Veterinary career Reid graduated from the Melbourne Veterinary College in 1906—she was one of five students who sat the final-year examinations and was the only one to pass. She was registered with the Veterinary Board of Victoria the same year, and was considered the first woman in the world to formally qualify as a veterinary surgeon.

Following her graduation, Reid established a private veterinary practice, the Balwyn Veterinary Surgery, near her childhood home in the house where the Reid family's chauffeur had once lived. She continued to run the practice until her retirement in 1923.