This issue's cover depicts a portrait of Sir William Kelsey Fry (1889-1963), a dental surgeon in the First World War and an important figure in the development of oral and maxillofacial surgery.

While dental services were not included in the medical provisions for soldiers, some doubly qualified dental surgeons such as Kelsey Fry served in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). In 1914 he was sent as a regimental medical officer to the Western Front where he was noted for his capability and bravery. Wounded twice in the line of duty, Kelsey Fry was sent back to England where he joined Harold Gillies' new plastic surgery unit at the Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot. In 1917 he moved with the unit to larger premises at Frognal House in Sidcup, becoming Chief Dental Surgeon of the newly established Queen's Hospital.

Gillies recognised the importance of a collaborative approach to facial injuries and therefore worked closely with his dental colleagues. With plastic surgery only just emerging as a specialty and maxillofacial surgery not yet fully developed, the distinction between the responsibilities of dental and plastic surgeons were often blurred. At Sidcup, Kelsey Fry was in charge of the dentists and dental technicians, and played an active role in designing the inventive dental prostheses that returned masticatory function to patients with jaw injuries. Under Kelsey Fry and Gillies, the Queen's Hospital became a centre for training in plastic and oral surgery for surgeons across the Commonwealth and America. In the Second World War, he went on to work alongside Archibald McIndoe (1900-1960) at the maxillofacial and plastic unit of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead. Later in his life, Kesley Fry became a Lecturer in Oral Surgery at the Eastman Dental Institute and was knighted in 1951.