John Smith (dentist)
John Smith was a Scottish dentist, philanthropist and pioneering educator. The founder of the Edinburgh school of dentistry, he served as president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and president of the
British Dental Association. He was the official surgeon/dentist to Queen Victoria when in Scotland.Life
Smith was born in Edinburgh, the son of dental surgeon John Smith. His family lived at 30 Frederick Street in the New Town.
He was educated at the Edinburgh Institution, the University of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Surgeons. He conducted postgraduate studies in London and Paris, making drawings of gunshot and sabre wounds. He took over his father's dental practice in 1851.
Smith started teaching the first regular courses on dental physiology and diseases in Scotland, in 1856. He was surgeon dentist to the Royal Public Dispensary. He co-founded the Hospital for Sick Children in 1859. Recognising the need for improved training, he founded, together with Francis Brodie Imlach, Peter Orphoot and Robert Nasmyth, the Edinburgh Dental Dispensary in 1860.
In 1871 Smith was appointed Surgeon Dentist to Queen Victoria, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, upon the nomination of John Hutton Balfour.
The Dental Dispensary grew into the Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School by 1879.
He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh in 1884.
Smith was also a moderately successful playwright. He was a senior elder in St Andrews Parish Church in Edinburgh.
In his final years he lived at 11 Wemyss Place, a fine Georgian house on the Moray Estate in Edinburgh's New Town. The dental practice element was taken over by William Guy from around 1899.
He died on 15 April 1910. He is buried on the edge of the path which runs over the central vaults in Warriston Cemetery.Family
He married Elizabeth Marjory Peters in 1853.Publications
