1928−2020

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Graham was born on 15 October 1928 in Newbiggin by the Sea, Northumberland. After a couple of years teaching art, woodwork and games in Morpeth, Graham got a place in 1952 at the Dental School, Kings College, Durham University, situated in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then thriving under the Deanship of Sir Robert Bradlaw.

Graham took an active role in student sports and politics, collecting several medals for academic achievement. After graduation BDS 1958 he became a partner in a general dental practice in Torquay, Devon, beginning to specialise in crown and bridge work. From 1964 Graham returned to academic life at Bristol University teaching conservative dentistry, graduating MDS 1970 which, in addition to being a higher research degree, included a clinical component accepted by the Royal Colleges as an equivalent to the FDSRCS for the award of consultant status. Graham then became the Consultant Senior Lecturer in Conservative Dentistry, and later Clinical Dean while also researching the design of post-retained porcelain crowns leading to the integrated stainless steel Charlton Post and Core which he continued to refine and market successfully.

He often referred to his days at Bristol as the happiest in his life, living just outside the city in the beautiful countryside of Backwell with wife Stella and three children. In 1978, taking up the chair at Edinburgh University, and also becoming Dean of Dentistry, he again encouraged students to pursue excellence in their work.

Standing out as not just a brilliant clinician, he also drew on his teaching education to put his expertise across to students in an inspiring and lucid manner. Having 'come up through the ranks' he brought a unique individuality of thought and action which set him apart from most of his academic colleagues. He distinguished himself in having all the right qualities for the job and consequently scaled the heights of academic and practical dentistry. He developed the concepts of full gold crowns with reduced occlusal surface width and the ideal hygienic bridge design, and is also remembered for his whistle stop tours of the UK to give postgraduate lectures on advanced restorative dentistry.

In 1992 Graham retired and moved to Bearsden near Glasgow and eventually to York after a gap of fifty years. In 2005 Stella died. From 2013 he lived in residential care in Newcastle-upon-Tyne where he died on 1 February 2020 after a series of strokes.

Geoffrey van Beek, Bruce Charlton and Ken Marshall