ROYAL COLLEGE OF VETERINARY SURGEONS. 359 
known him the more he respected him. It afforded him 
great pleasure to think that the Council had had an oppor- 
tunity of electing so steady and respected a member of the 
profession to the position which he had filled with so much 
honour to himself and with so much advantage to the College ; 
and he was quite sure that at this the termination of his year 
of office, the members present, while thanking him for the 
manner in which he had filled the chair, would entertain 
feelings of regret that they were to be deprived of his 
future services. 
The motion was received, and carried by acclamation. 
The President , in acknowledging the compliment, said he 
entered the Veterinary College in 1791? and that he considered 
himself one of the most fortunate men in the profession. 
He referred to the period when application was made to 
Government (Mr. Pitt being Chancellor of the Exchequer) 
for a grant in aid of the funds of the Veterinary College, on 
which occasion, he said, he, in conjunction with the late Mr. 
Edmund Bond, volunteered his services to a regiment of 
cavalry on home service, to test the utility of the introduction 
of veterinary surgeons into the cavalry generally. Mr. Bond 
withdrew his offer, but he (Mr. Stockley), then a boy of 
eighteen years of age, stood alone. He was placed in a 
regiment with a surgeon of great eminence, who also knew a 
great deal about horses, and there w 7 ere five noblemen in the 
regiment all of them sportsmen. At the end of six months 
there w T as a report made, that such appointments would 
probably prove useful, and Professor Coleman recommended 
a number of persons for commissions. He (Mr. Stockley) 
was at that time demonstrator of anatomy and assistant to 
Mr. Coleman, and should have returned to him in that 
capacity, but that he grew fond of a soldier’s life, and (wffiat 
was still more agreeable) the soldiers got fond of him. He 
w r as afterwards appointed to an assistant-surgeoncy, then to 
a cornetcy, and subsequently he was transferred to the Ar- 
tillery, where he had remained ever since. He had done 
everything in his power to maintain the respectability of the 
profession, and that under some difficulties, for he had had 
the temerity to bring officers of high standing in the horse 
department before courts of inquiry, for interfering with his 
practice. He had lately re-established a museum at Woolwich, 
and had likewise delivered an introductory lecture. He w^as the 
first to make a stir for the improvement of the pecuniary posi- 
tion of veterinary surgeons in the army. In stating this, there 
might appear some vain-glorying, but he was desirous of 
showing that he had not been altogether useless. Mr. Stockley 
