Who would’ve thought that the daughter of a musician in the 19th Century would grow up to be the most influential woman in British dentistry.
Lilian Lindsay, born in Holloway, London in 1871, was the third of eleven children, educated at Camden School for Girls before winning a scholarship to the North London Collegiate School. Her headmistress told her she was "destined to be a teacher of the deaf and dumb." Lilian refused: "You cannot prevent me from being a dentist." She lost her scholarship and left in 1889.
She applied to dental schools across England, but was rejected at every turn - the Royal College of Surgeons refused women outright, and the National Dental Hospital interviewed her on the pavement outside rather than let her in. Ironically, it was that same dean who pointed her towards Edinburgh Dental School, where Scotland's more progressive attitude to women in education opened the door England had slammed shut.
After applying to Edinburgh Dental School, Lilian was finally accepted and able to study her passion, but even once she got to Edinburgh, many staff were displeased with a woman joining their ranks.
Despite these setbacks, she excelled in her studies and graduated with honours in 1895 as the first woman to qualify as a dentist in the UK, winning the Wilson medal for dental surgery and pathology, and the medal for materia medica and therapeutics along the way.
After her graduation, she was welcomed into the British Dental Association as ‘the first lady member’ in 1895. Astonishingly, it would be another 17 years before the first female graduate of an English dental school would join her, coming from the same university that turned Lilian away.
She began her busy dental practice not far from the house in which she grew up in, working there for the decade it took her to repay her student loans.
In 1905, she married Robert Lindsay, a man she had met on her very first day at dental school a decade earlier. She moved back to Edinburgh and practiced with him until 1920, when Robert was appointed secretary to the British Dental Association. They moved into a flat above the BDA headquarters, with Lilian becoming honorary librarian to the BDA, growing its collection from 350 works to over 10,000 volumes, learning French, German, Latin and Spanish in order to do so.
In 1923, women made up only 2% of registered dentists in the UK. Lilian herself went on to become the first female President of the British Dental Association in 1946, a position no other woman would hold for another 47 years - and was awarded a CBE the same year. Today, more than half of UK dental students are female, a transformation she helped make possible.
Her story is one of relentless perseverance, a woman who lost her scholarship for refusing to back down, was interviewed on a pavement because she wasn't allowed inside, and still ended up shaping the very institution that once turned her away.