Lilian Lindsay, CBE, FSA was a dentist, dental historian, librarian and author who became the first qualified female dentist in Britain and the first female president of the British Dental Association.
17 Facts About Lilian Lindsay
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Lilian Lindsay was born Lilian Murray in Holloway, London in 1871, the daughter of a musician, and the third of eleven children.
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Lilian Lindsay was educated at the Camden School for Girls, and won a scholarship to the North London Collegiate School.
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Lilian Lindsay was able to secure a three-year apprenticeship in dentistry through a family friend, but did not feel this was enough and sought to enrol in dental school.
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Lilian Lindsay passed preliminary examinations, and in 1892 she applied for entry to the National Dental Hospital in Great Portland Street.
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Lilian Lindsay advised her not to apply to the Dental Hospital of London as the Royal College of Surgeons of England did not allow women to sit their examinations at that time.
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Lilian Lindsay did suggest that she apply to Edinburgh Dental Hospital and School, and she was accepted there by the dean W Bowman Macleod.
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Lilian Lindsay met her future husband, Robert Lindsay, a member of the teaching staff, on her first day at the dental school.
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Lilian Lindsay subsequently joined the British Dental Association in November 1895, the first woman to become a member.
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In 1905 she married Robert Lilian Lindsay and moved back to Edinburgh to practise with him at 2 Brandon Street.
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Lilian Lindsay founded the library with books bequeathed by Gaddes, and contributed her own artefacts to start the museum.
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Lilian Lindsay learned French, German, Latin and some Old English and Spanish to help with her historical research.
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Lilian Lindsay remained on the BDJ editorial committee until her death, and published 57 papers in the BDJ between 1925 and 1959.
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In 1946, Lilian Lindsay became the first female President of the British Dental Association, was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Edinburgh, and was awarded the CBE.
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Lilian Lindsay published her translation of Pierre Fauchard's Le Chirurgien Dentiste in 1946, the first time the landmark work had been translated into English.
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Lilian Lindsay continued to expand the BDA library until her death in 1960, and received a number of awards and honorary degrees during this time.
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An English Heritage blue plaque commemorating Lilian Lindsay was placed at 3 Hungerford Road, Holloway, London, where Lilian Lindsay had lived for the first twenty years of her life, in 2013.