John Smith

Who was John Smith?

John Smith FRSE PRCSEd 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.

Smith was born in Edinburgh, the son of dental surgeon John Smith, and educated at the Edinburgh Institution, Edinburgh University 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, and married Elizabeth Marjory Peters in 1853.

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 Imlach and others, the Edinburgh Dental Dispensary in 1860. Smith wrote the Handbook of Dental Anatomy and Surgery.

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.