INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF VETERINARY AND ANIMAL MEDICINE (ISSN:2517-7362)

In the final 20 years of the 19th Century the Sudan was in turmoil. An indigenous religious uprising against the Egyptian rulers was eventually put down by the Egyptian and elements of the British Army in 1898. The capital, Khartoum, was captured and a condominium known as the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was established. The country remained largely under military rule for many years. A Veterinary Service was installed mainly to provide health care to the enormous numbers of cavalry and transport animals (horses, mules, donkeys and camels) that the military required to govern and control the still turbulent population. Between the establishment of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1901 and the achievement of independence by the Republic of Sudan on 1 January 1956 a total of 12 people served as Principal Veterinary Officers (to 1910) or as Directors of Veterinary Services (from 1910 to 1956). The early incumbents of the post were serving military officers seconded, usually for rather short periods, from the British Army Veterinary Corps to the Egyptian Army which in turn employed them directly or seconded them to the Sudan. Frederick Ulysses Carr was the fourth officer to head the veterinary services in Sudan and served for the longest time, almost ten years in all.

ackground and Early life Frederick Ulysses Carr -- possibly named in honour of Ulysses S Grant, 18th President of the USA and in office 1869-1877 -- was born in Brighouse, West Riding of Yorkshire on 19 February 1872 [1]. He was the fourth child of George Carr, born in Ossett and a Police Inspector at the time of the birth, and Martha Hopkinson of Haworth.1 George had been living in lodgings and was a Police Sergeant in Haworth in 1861. George, aged 32 and son of a Manufacturer, married Martha Hopkinson, aged 19 and daughter of a Gentleman, at the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth on 23 April 1862 when he had already been transferred to Wath on Dearne near Doncaster also in West Yorkshire. On the census return of 1861 George was listed as Unmarried and was initially described as a Bachelor on his marriage certificate but this had been crossed out and Widower inserted. George had previously married, by License, a Jane Rigg on 26 August 1854 at the Parish Church of Kendal in Westmorland [2] when he was employed as a Fuller but he joined the police force when living at Batley Carr near Dewsbury on 4 December 1856. Jane died shortly after this event. In 1871 George was a Police Sergeant living on Keighley Road, Skipton with his wife and three children. Promoted to Superintendent by 1881 George and Martha were living in High Street, Knaresborough with three of their children including Frederick aged 9. Ten years later in 1891 George, a retired Police Officer, was living with wife Martha in Poulton near Morecambe in Lancashire. Back in Haworth at Number 7 Greenfield Terrace in 1901 George is a Retired Police Superintendent and although he is married his wife is not present but his married daughter Lucy and her daughter Elsie are living with him. His wife Martha Carr aged 58 and born in Haworth was in fact a visitor in the household of Ezra Townend, a Wool Merchant, at 73 Heckmondwyke Road, Dewsbury: the reason for this visit has not been ascertained. Martha Carr died in the spring of 1905 aged 63 [3] and was buried in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, Haworth. George was still at 7 Greenfield Terrace aged 81 in 1911 but was now being looked after by his 19-year old granddaughter Elsie May Argyle. George died aged 82 towards the end of 1912 [4] and was buried with his wife in St Michael’s churchyard.

Frederick Ulysses Carr was baptised at the Anglican church of Saint Martin in Brighouse on 14 April 1872. He was living with his parents in Knaresborough in 1881 where he attended Clarendon House School situated in a house at 21 York Place (Figure 1a). The Headmaster was William Gelder and obviously a person of some repute as he was appointed a Land Tax Commissioner in 1906. When his parents moved to Halifax Fred, who was a good looking lad (Figure 2a) continued his education at the Higher Grade School in that town. He was later apprenticed to Parlane McFarlane Walker, Veterinary Surgeon, of Blackwall House, Blackwall, Halifax where he continued to be a good looking youth (Figure 2b). Frederick aged 19 was in lodgings together with another Veterinary Student at 65 College Place in Camden town in 1891 while studying at the Royal Veterinary College (Figure 1b). At Camden he won a First Prize for his Essay on Meat Inspection (Figure 3). Frederick Ulysses Carr qualified as Member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (MRCVS) on 14 December 1893 and was then a Senior Assistant at the College until 1895.

Whilst at the College a dog was brought to the clinic whose paw had been crushed by a passing vehicle. The leg had to be amputated and Carr got a Mr Mosely, who was a dental surgeon, to make an artificial limb constructed of aluminium covered with white buckskin, laced behind and with a soft rubber sole. “The joints are at the right spots and pitched mathematically at the correct inclination which permits the use of the foot with natural action and freedom from jar” [5].