Birmingham’s new dental school and hospital – A real Peter Pan of dentistry

Birmingham Dental Hospital was founded in January 1858 at Odd-fellows Hall, 13 Temple Street and it is now the oldest institution of its kind in the UK and it is believed in the world. The hospital was first called the 'Birmingham Dental Dispensary', and was founded by Samuel Adams Parker, son of the well-known Birmingham surgeon S. W. Langston Parker. It has moved six times between 1858 and 2016. The first move was in 1863 to number 2 Upper Priory, premises that were shared with the city's Homeopathic Hospital. The second relocation was in 1871 to number 9 Broad Street; Broad Street is now the cultural centre of the city located by the intersection of Birmingham's canals at Gas Street Basin and home to the International Convention Centre and the Symphony Hall. Interestingly, in 1882 the Dental Hospital occupied its fourth site at 71 Newhall Street, another city centre site and a short 5-minute walk from all three former sites. Here, it did not occupy the whole building, the cellars being let to a brewery; one can only imagine what happened on Friday evenings! The old Newhall Street hospital had a fearsome exterior (Fig. 1a) and the smokers in the enclosed surgery (Fig. 1b) would clearly not pass one of today's CQC or HSE inspections. Indeed, they would likely be the subject of a GDC fitness to practise investigation!