Eric Cooper

Eric Cooper died on the 19th of August 1999, at his home near Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. He will be remembered by members of the dental profession as an outstanding consultant and surgeon.

He was born in Yorkshire in 1912. He began to study dentistry at Guys Hospital, London, in 1931 and after qualifying, spent six months as Sir William Kelsey Fry's house surgeon. Following this, he worked for a period in practice in Chislehurst, before joining the army at the outbreak of the war. Captured by the Germans in the battle of Crete in 1941, he became a prisoner of war and ended up in Colditz castle as prison dental officer until the end of the war.

Following liberation he returned to England and in July 1948, on the day that the NHS began, took up an appointment with the Manchester Regional Hospital Board. This was at Baguley Hospital (later known as Wythenshawe), which had a prominent maxillo-facial and plastic surgery centre during the war. After gaining his FDS in 1950, he settled in the North West of England and began a long and distinguished career as a Consultant Dental Surgeon, initially covering hospitals in Preston, Wigan, Blackpool, Lancaster and Barrow-in-Furness. Throughout his working life, numerous patients benefited from his skills and sympathetic manner and he was always held in high esteem.

He and his wife, Joy, bought a seven-acre smallholding near Carnforth in Lancashire, as it was his ambition, when a POW in Colditz, to own a dairy cow. He was conscientious and dedicated in his work, but still found time for poetry, literature and art. He and Joy loved to travel, but were happiest walking on the fells and mountains near to their home, or riding their tandem in the quiet lanes. After Eric's retirement in 1974, they kept up their many activities, but Eric found more time for his garden and workshop, where he was a highly skilled and creative craftsman. After 43 years in their much loved home, they moved to the Isle of Wight to be near their daughter and family.

Eric Cooper will be remembered with great affection and respect by his colleagues and many friends and especially missed by his wife Joy, his children, Madelaine, Paul and Heather and his eight grandchildren.

K W and HF

Christine Hillam

The untimely death of Christine Hillam has deprived the profession of one its foremost dental historians. Christine's research endeavours brought her to national and international acclaim. She was a leading force in the Lindsay Society for the History of Dentistry and was the current chair at the time of her death. Previously she had been secretary, treasurer and editor of Dental Historian, which under her guidance rose to be a source of properly referenced academic papers. She was also the current chair of the Liverpool Medical History Society and editor of Medical Historian. In addition to publishing 44 research papers, she read 21 communications to learned societies, contributed to five radio broadcasts and wrote three books on the history of dentistry. One of the books The Roots of Dentistry was published by the BDJ. Her last book, on which she was working just before her death, studies dental practice in Europe at the end of the 18 century.

Christine was not a dentist. Her interest in dentistry was kindled by her marriage to a dentist. Her husband's career took her to Birmingham where she met Ronald Cohen who worked extensively on the history of dentistry. Initially Christine translated documents for Ronald Cohen, but she also contributed to biographical research on 18th and 19th century dentists. This led to her to obtaining a Welcome Trust scholarship enabling her to further her own research on the social history of the profession.

After she and her husband moved to Liverpool, Christine was unable to obtain any substantial funding to continue her research. It was typical of her perseverance that she persuaded the History Department of the University of Liverpool to supervise her studies for a doctorate degree. Her thesis The development of dental practice in the provinces from the 18th century to 1855 was done entirely at her own expense and remains the seminal work on the subject.

Christine was born in Doncaster in 1941 and read French and Latin for her BA degree at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne. She gained a Diploma in Education and taught for a while in local schools. She also gained a diploma for teaching English as a Foreign Language.

Christine's one regret was that the history of dentistry was not sufficiently recognised as an area of academic study to justify funding in dental schools.

Christine died on the 24th January after a 15 month fight against cancer. Her illness was born with typical fortitude, she never once asked 'why me?' Her funeral was typically Christine, a humanist ceremony with an enormous attendance of people. Her loss is a great sadness to David, her husband of 35 years. She will be remembered as one of the foremost dental historians.

M.V.M. and R. K.