Harvard Dental School
The Harvard Dental School was founded in 1867. The Harvard Directory of 1910 records 19 alumni with Australian addresses of whom 10 had dental degrees. The dominance of dentists is even more pronounced if only those graduates who lived in Australia before going to Harvard are considered. By this criterion, there were 12 Australian graduates of Harvard of whom 10 had dental degrees. The reasons why so many young dentists went to study at the Harvard Dental School are bound up with the accreditation of dentists in Australia and the naming of degrees.
Dentistry in the Australian colonies was initially unregulated. The Dentists’ Act of 1878 required registration of dentists in the United Kingdom. British dentists held Licentiates in Dental Surgery but could not obtain doctoral degrees until the turn of the century. Dental degrees from Harvard and Michigan were initially accepted as qualifying a dentist for British registration, but were subsequently deemed insufficient qualification in 1893. Some thought that the British Dentists’ Act also applied to the colonies but, in practice, the Australian dental profession continued to be unregulated. The first colony to pass its own Dental Act was Tasmania (1884), followed by Victoria (1887), Western Australia (1894), New South Wales (1900), Queensland (1902), and South Australia (1902). The Acts were not fully compatible, and a dentist who was duly registered in one state might not qualify for registration if he moved to another state. The colonial Dental Acts allowed registration of persons who were registered, or entitled to be registered, in the United Kingdom, as well as persons who satisfied local requirements. Disputes about who could be registered, especially among those who had practised prior to the Acts, were often acrimonious.
Before the establishment of dental colleges, the standard way to obtain dental training in the colonies was by fee-paying apprenticeship (or to be trained by a dentist relative). The first colony to establish a dental school was Victoria, followed by New South Wales and South Australia (after Federation).
An Odontological Society of Victoria was founded in 1884 with an exclusive, self-elected membership. The Society lobbied for dental reform and the raising of the professional status of dentists. The Dental Board of Victoria, with powers to register dentists, was established in 1888 under the terms of the Dentists’ Act of 1887 and began to examine candidates for registration. A Dental Association was founded in 1890 with the purpose of founding a dental hospital and college in Melbourne. The membership of the Dental Association overlapped with, but was more inclusive, than the Odontological Society. A Melbourne Dental Hospital was opened in 1890 under the governance of a committee appointed by the subscribers. The Hospital appears to have struggled and in 1895 its governance was transferred from the committee to the Dental Association. By this time, the Melbourne Dental Hospital had a rival in the form of the Oral Hospital of Victoria (see below).
In March 1894, John Iliffe and Edwin Lenthall Oldfield were elected to the Dental Board of Victoria. Iliffe was English-born, English-trained and one of the founders of the Odontological Society of Victoria. Oldfield was native-born. In January 1895, Oldfield opened a private Dental College and Oral Hospital in Fitzroy with the purpose of training students to pass the examinations of the Dental Board. The college was open to women and among its early students was Alys Berry the daughter of Sir Graham Berry, then speaker of the Victorian parliament. The Dental Board however, over Oldfield’s objections, recognized the Melbourne Dental Hospital as the educational institution within the meaning of its regulations. Newspaper references can be found at this time to the Melbourne Dental Hospital and College.
Oldfield was voted off the Dental Board in March 1897 (John Iliffe and Arthur R. Clarke were the successful candidates). In May, Oldfield registered the Odontological Society of Victoria Limited as a company. This was probably a ploy to seize control of the name from Iliffe and his supporters. In July, the Australian College of Dentistry was opened in affiliation with the Melbourne Dental Hospital (John Iliffe as vice-president) and Oldfield gazetted the Dental College and Oral Hospital as a public hospital under a committee of subscribers. Oldfield’s College continued under his private management. Oldfield is reported to have asked the Australian College to take on his students but the request was declined. In February 1899, Alys Berry, Ethel Godfrey, and Mrs Balderson were the first women to be registered as dentists in Victoria after four years’ practise at Oldfield’s Dental College and Oral Hospital. I have found no evidence of the Dental College taking on new students after the establishment of the Australian College of Dentistry. Ernest Harold Christopher Bailey and Francis William Bailey entered Harvard Dental School with training from the Dental College and Oral Hospital whereas Thomas William Lee Wilson and Christopher William Hurworth entered with training from the Melbourne Dental College.
Lenthall Oldfield was absent from Australia 1900–1904. During this time, he was registered as a colonial dentist in Great Britain, as a dentist in Illinois, received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Toronto, and graduated M.D. from Jenner Medical College, Chicago. He returned to Australia in November 1904 with a new wife and daughter (Minnie Oldfield who had remained in Australia considered they were still married). Oldfield died, insolvent, on January 27, 1906 and the Dental College and Oral Hospital died with him.
The Australian College of Dentistry could not grant degrees and offered a Licentiate of Dental Surgery of Victoria. The College affiliated with the University of Melbourne in 1904, after which the University offered a four-year Bachelor of Dental Surgery from 1905. A campaign by the Odontological Society of Victoria (the Society reappears after Oldfield's death) resulted in the University offering a Doctor of Dental Science from 1911.
The Dental Act of New South Wales became operative on January 1, 1901 and a Dental School associated with the University of Sydney opened later that year. Of the six lecturers in practical dentistry appointed in 1901, one possessed the English Licentiate of Dental Science but the other five were Doctors of Dental Science from the University of Philadelphia. One of the latter (Alfred Cooper Nathan) also possessed the degree Doctor of Dental Medicine from Harvard University. The first students for the degree Bachelor of Dental Surgery were admitted to the University of Sydney in 1906. The degree Doctor of Dental Science was approved in 1926 and first awarded the following year. Dental apprenticeships were abolished by an amendment of the Act in 1934.
A dental school was not established at the University of Adelaide until 1919. This school initially offered a Bachelor of Dental Surgery with a Doctor of Dental Science added in 1923.
During the late colonial period and the early years of Federation, many Australian dentists went to study in America. Charles Newling, an Adelaide dentist who had trained as a fee-paying apprentice to dentists in Sydney and Melbourne, identified an important reason why aspiring young dentists sought American degrees. “With a colonial degree you are Mr., but with the American you are Dr. This is the undoubted attraction to our students. I notice there are no less than 17 students from Australia in one American college, and there are dozens of colleges there. … A Dental College established in Adelaide giving a three-years’ course and the D.D.S. degree would attract students from all over the Commonwealth and relieve ‘Brother Johnathan’ of looking after our boys” (Register (Adelaide) 21 July 1910). One of his sons, Percival Ray Newling, subsequently obtained a dental doctorate from Northwestern University (Chicago) in 1914, and another, Russell Lee Newling, obtained a dental doctorate from Harvard in 1917.
The importance of the doctoral title was also noted in an editorial in the Horsham Times (24 October 1911) after the establishment of a Doctor of Dental Science at the University of Melbourne: “Victorian students in dentistry will consequently not require to go abroad in future to obtain the much-coveted distinction.”
At least 36 former residents of Australia received the Harvard degree of Doctoral of Dental Medicine up until the Commencement of 1941. Some of these students came to Harvard Dental School for a full multi-year course of instruction, but the majority came for a single year to obtain their doctorate after receiving training in Australia. During the 1920s, 11 out of 14 D.M.D.s were granted to individuals with a B.D.S. from the University of Sydney who came to Harvard to obtain their doctorate. Victorian students are absent during this period, presumably because the D.D.S. degree was available at the University of Melbourne. The stream of Sydney-trained dentists coming to Harvard dries to a trickle after 1927, once dentists could obtain a doctoral degree from the University of Sydney. Most of the individuals who undertook the full Harvard dental course (not just the final year) came from Western Australia where there was no dental school during this period.