Certificate of registration for the practice of optometry in Victoria for Ian Laurence Bailey

Historical Significance: Optometrists were first required to be registered in Victoria under the Opticians Registration Act 1935. This certificate is issued under the 1955 (?1958) Act. Bailey graduated as an optometrist in 1961 from the Victorian College of Optometry. He travelled overseas studying in London and at Indiana University where he obtained a master's degree. He returned to Melbourne as lecturer and clinic administrator in the Victorian College of Optometry in 1971. He took the lead in establishing the low vision clinic at Kooyong in 1972 and subsequently established himself as a world leader in the field of low vision. In 1974 he resigned his lectureship in the VCO to become the first research fellow in the then newly established National Vision Research Institute, where he researched the management of low vision, in the course of which he devised the LogMAR system for visual acuity. He subsequently took a position in the School of Optometry at the University of California Berkeley for the rest of his career, reaching the rank of full Professor. He was elected an honorary life member of the Australian College of Optometry in 2014. His biography is published in Clin Exp Optom 2004; 87: 37-41, which is also on this website under the tab 'People who made history'.