John Peter HEYES

Captain John Peter Heyes FRCVS was a Wigan veterinary surgeon whose path into the profession began with horses long before he entered veterinary college. His father was a shoeing smith. A contemporary professional obituary, later indexed by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, recorded that Heyes left school at twelve to assist in his father’s business and, by sixteen, was successfully competing against experienced shoeing smiths at agricultural shows.

At nineteen he entered the Royal Veterinary College in London and qualified on 17 May 1895. His performance was strong enough for him to be offered a post as hospital surgeon at the college. After about two years he returned to Wigan and established his own practice, with premises in Upper Dickinson Street. Wigan’s surviving wartime records also identify him with the Wigan Grammar School Old Boys Association.

Heyes had a military veterinary connection before the war and held a commission in the East Lancashire Divisional Veterinary Service. During the First World War he served with the Army Veterinary Corps and was attached to the 42nd Division. His service took him to Egypt and Gallipoli.

Gallipoli was physically costly. The surviving obituary records that Heyes suffered dysentery and was later knocked from his horse by motor transport, sustaining serious injuries. He was sent away to recuperate and eventually returned to duty in Malta. There he suffered sunstroke and died at St Andrew’s Hospital on 6 July 1916, aged forty-two.

The Veterinary Record remembered him as a highly capable member of the profession and stressed the responsibilities he had carried during active service. Heyes is buried in Pieta Military Cemetery, Malta, grave C.X.2. The recumbent form of his grave marker reflects the conditions of the cemetery rather than any difference in his Commonwealth War Graves commemoration.