Download Harold Gladstone Watkins

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Harold Gladstone Watkin 1882-1965
Pioneering Orthodontist of the Twentieth Century
SV Freeman∗
Early Years
Harold Gladstone Watkin was born in on 17 January 1882 in Burslem, Stoke on Trent. He lived
with his father, James, an architect, his mother, Isabella (nee Ball) and his sister Sarah-Jane who
was commonly known as Dotty because of her diminutive size. Harold himself only grew to 4
feet 11 inches. At the time the potteries were a thriving part of the UK and Harold enjoyed a
comfortable lifestyle. Then, in 1892, disaster struck the family as his father suffered heatstroke
whilst inspecting the roof of a building, fell off and was killed, aged 38. Isabella took the two
children to live with her widowed father Henry George Ball so that she could act as housekeeper.
Henry was a successful businessman with a background in the chemical and Pharmaceutical
industry and had owned a chemist shop in the centre of Burslem. Henry had retired a wealthy
man in 1889 at the age of 50 and became Mayor of Burslem. Henry’s home was Claremont
House and was a fine residence in Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. It was in this house that Watkin
spent his formative teenage years.
As the family was Methodist, Watkin was sent to the High School in Hanley. He excelled
at his work, especially in Physics. Despite this prowess at school his Grandfather made him leave
at 15 because, he had left school at that age and he saw no reason why it should be any different
for his grandson, so in 1897 Watkin left Hanley High School at 15 without matriculating and
embarked on his career.
As a young man he used to enjoy dancing and ice-skating and also went sailing with his
next-door neighbours who were in the Pottery business, and would take Watkin to Burnham
Crouch on the East coast. He acquired a motorbike with a basket woven sidecar. Then roads
were un-metalled, very dusty and usually surfaced in limestone chippings and a common sight
was of a large cloud of dust thrown up by a distance vehicle. To protect themselves any
passenger would wear goggles and an extra long leather overcoat called a dustcoat, but at their
destination, on removal of the goggles they would be left with distinct clean panda eyes. June
Driver (nee Murray, Assistant Orthodontist and one time President of the Liverpool and District
Odontological Society) recalls:
I remember he used to chuckle when telling me he was speeding along one day on
his motorbike and was tipped off that there was a police speed trap ahead. He
decided to enter the area of the trap, alight and eat his sandwiches at the side of
the road, before proceeding again at speed, waving to the policeman at the other
end of the speed trap. This just tickled his sense of mischievousness.1
∗
Address for correspondence: 27 Loomsway, Irby, Wirral CH61 4UD. The author wishes to thank the
following individuals for their assistance with the preparation of this paper: Dr J.K. Tweedie, Dr P.A.
Chapman, Dr E.J.S. Clifford, Dr J. Driver (nee Murray), Dr B. Birkinhead, Dr H. Eirew, Dr J. Cooper, Mr
A.G. McDonald, Mrs S. Cork.
1
Interview with June Driver on 14.9.00.
15
In the early 1900s Einstein published his first theories on physics and the universe and Watkin
was fascinated by his work.2 Watkin owned a telescope and on 8 May 1910 he went to Mow
Cop, just north of Stoke on Trent, to view Halley’s Comet as the Earth passed through part of its
long tail. His interest in astronomy continued throughout his life. Watkin flew in an aeroplane
before 1914, which was probably a Farman plane in a travelling show.3 In the early 1900s flyers
used to go round the country and give people rides in their planes: like a novelty circus ride. Fees
would be charged to go into a field where the pilots would live in tents and the public could
watch as they took the planes up to circle the field. The Farman French training aircraft was a
two-seated bi-plane and a passenger could sit alongside the pilot and may have been allowed to
use controls under close supervision.
Watkin’s interest in science led him to take up a job in the Equipment Department of the
National Telephone Company and he worked on the first fully automatic telephone exchange in
Potteries that opened in 1904. Through his studies at the Wedgwood Memorial Institute he
gained Electrical Engineer qualifications, passing City and Guilds London Institute Certificates
in Telephony, Telegraphy and Electrical Lighting and Power. He also befriended a local dentist
and he used to go to help him in his laboratory. This gave him the confidence to follow an old
wish to study dentistry. Though thirty years of age he left the telephone industry and embarked
on a two year apprenticeship with dentist Mr J. Shields in the potteries
In 1904, always interested in cutting edge technology, Watkin built his own X-ray machine
powered by a Wimshurst machine.4 Rontgen discovered x-rays in 1895, and such tubes could be
bought by anyone and the risks involved with handling X-rays were unknown.5 Using this
apparatus he took the earliest known radiograph in Stoke-on-Trent for Mr. King Alcock,
F.R.C.S., a local surgeon, who had a female patient who worked in a textile factory and the end
of a machine needle had snapped off in her finger.
In 1914 Watkin came to Liverpool where, exempt from fighting in the War because of the
shortage of qualified dentists, he began to apply his engineering knowledge to dentistry. He
studied at the Liverpool School of Dental Surgery when Mr W H Gilmour MDS LDS RCS
(Eng.) was the warden.6 Watkin qualified in 1918 with an LDS Liv. aged 36 and became a
member of the British Dental Association and Liverpool Odontological Society and in 1920
joined the Liverpool Microscopical Society. Some of the dental School registers are stored in the
cellars of the Dental Museum and Watkin’s name appears many times recording his attendance,
2
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955. American theoretical physicist famous for his 1905 formulation of the
relativity theory.
3
Maurice Farman, 1877-1964. French aircraft designer and manufacturer. Pioneer developer of early
aviation.
4
James Wimshurst, 1832-1903. English inventor, engineer, and shipwright. 1883 first described
Electrostatic generating Wimshurst machine.
5
Wilhelm Rontgen, 1845 –1923. German physicist. 1901 Recipient of first Nobel Prize for Physics for
his discovery of X-rays.
6
Mr W H Gilmour MDS LDS RCS (Eng.) was warden of the Liverpool Dental School from 1898 to
1920. In 1920 was appointed to the Chair in Dental Surgery in the University of Liverpool. Professor
Gilmour gave up a lucrative practice to become the first, and for many years the only salaried, full-time
Professor of Dental Surgery in the British Isles.
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both at lectures, and during a twelve-month period as a post-graduate House Surgeon at the
Dental Hospital.7
Watkin’s First Dental Practice 1919-1930
As the First World War drew to a close, there was growing concern at the proliferation of
unregistered dentists and the shortage of qualified ones. It was into this background that Watkin
opened a Dental Practice at 95 Durning Road, Wavertree, Liverpool, with a Mr Cookson. He
worked as a general dental practitioner and did some oral surgery, but his special interest was
Orthodontics. In 1921 he became a member of the British Society for the Study of Orthodontics
(BSSO) and a member of European Orthodontic Society (EOS) in 1926.
The practice quickly became successful. Watkin began to build up a reputation of clinical
excellence with a delightful manner towards children: he never spoke down to them, explaining
what he was doing at each stage. I met one lady who, as a child, had a frightening experience
with her own dentist and so refused treatment. She was referred to Watkin, because of his
reputation with children and he quickly put her at her ease. He was interested in the effect of the
soft tissue on the position of the teeth and would perform any surgery he believed necessary. I
recently met an elderly woman who, as a small child, had her tongue freed by Watkin as she was
suffering from ankyloglossitis.8 His notes also describe how it was sometimes necessary to
shorten a tongue to prevent relapse following the removal of an orthodontic appliance
The treatment which is most likely to be successful is to reduce the outward
pressure of the tongue. This can easily be done by taking a wedge shaped piece
out of the tongue. The final length and width should be estimated beforehand
and this can be influenced by the length of the two incisions and the angle
between them.9
Throughout his life the boundary between his work and home life was blurred as he applied
himself with equal enthusiasm to his hobbies as to his professional tasks. He applied his ingenuity and engineering skill to perfect an electric mains-operated cigarette lighter as early as
1923 and adapted a Marsden gas/air anaesthetic machine to make a very efficient apparatus.
Watkin continued to use his X-ray machine and in 1925 his nephew Arthur McDonald had an Xray done for Orthodontic treatment. Arthur remembered a sound like the buzzing of an angry
swarm of bees emanating from the eight feet diameter by eighteen feet long induction coil
mounted up on wall in Durning Road that gave out a huge typically many thousands of volts.10
At that time it was common practice to rest ones hand on the photographic plate feeling for
warmth to tell if it had enough exposure. However, Watkin timed the exposure by stepping
outside and smoking a Gold Flake cigarette. This is possibly one of the few occasions when
smoking cigarettes could be considered beneficial to health, as cancer of the hand became a
common disease of dentists and other early users of X-ray photography.
7
The Liverpool School of Dentistry Surgery was then housed in a building on the Pembroke Place area of
the University Campus. Now it is housed in the School of Dentistry, Edwards Building, where part of the
collection is on permanent display.
8
Bent tongue – to one side, or tethered tongue - at the bottom.
9
Watkin personal papers, held by Dr EJS Clifford.
10
Interview with A. McDonald on 4.09.00.
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Watkin’s Grandfather, Henry Ball, sold Claremont House and with Watkin’s mother,
Isabella, set up in home in 95 Durning Road. On 16 January 1923 Watkin married a former
patient, Hilda Hayter (who was to become my grandmother). Hilda was born August 1900 in
Cheyney Walk Chelsea and was much younger than he was. The daughter of an organ builder,
and although not highly educated, she was an intelligent woman who later acted as practice
manager and dealt with the clerical and financial side. The couple experienced the stillbirth of a
boy at six months, then Joyce Kathleen was born in 1924 and Phyllis Anne in 1927, after which
Hilda refused to have any more children.
The First Successful Jaw Resection
Watkin performed the first successful jaw resection operation in the UK in 1928 with Mr G.C.E.
Simpson FRCS. Together they published a paper ‘The Surgical Correction of an Exaggerated
Case of Inferior Protrusion’, which noted that
In man, marked protrusion of the mandible (Bull Dog Jaw) is a rare condition
which in its higher grades is a serious disadvantage to its unfortunate possessor,
not only from the disfigurement, but because it leads to defective enunciation
and difficulty in mastication.11
Figure 1: Illustration showing: in the upper two images, the original presentation of the jaw and
teeth alignment and in the lower two images, the result after corrective surgery. (Source: H.G.
Watkin and G.C.E. Simpson, ‘The Surgical Correction of an Exaggerated Case of Inferior
Protrusion’, Brit. Ortho., Oral Surg. & Rad., Int. Jnl XVI, (1930), 1163-1167.)
11
H.G. Watkin and G.C.E. Simpson, ‘The Surgical Correction of an Exaggerated Case of Inferior
Protrusion’, Brit. Ortho. Oral Surg. & Rad. Int. Jnl, XVI, (1930), 1163-1167.
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The patient, at the age of 28 had qualified for a ship’s captain’s ticket and was so permitted to
take the first position on board ship. For this high profile job he would be expected to take up a
position at the Captain’s table and dine with the passengers. However his extremely prominent
lower jaw with his lower incisors being 17mm in front of his uppers, resulted in him being
ashamed to eat in public. Only two of his teeth met to chew his food and as his lips did not seal
food would spray out of his mouth. This also caused problems with enunciation. The operation
was therefore considered necessary for his quality of life.
Watkin did not lack in confidence and his partner was an experienced surgeon, but the
pair did plenty of research and mental preparation before beginning this daring operating. The
process was performed as follows:
1. Preparation was made by fixing metal bands with buccal hooks to the back molars that
should occlude.
2. A small incision, about half an inch long, was made on the outside of the jaw, the correct
position being ascertained by palpitation and x-ray examination. A blunt instrument
steered a deep path right around the jawbone and a flexible Gigli saw was used to cut
from within outwards almost through the bone. Great care had to be taken to avoid
damaging the facial nerve and the parotid gland, as there was a real danger of severing
them. The final break was made using a very carefully angled fine chisel. Mallet and
chisel work was Watkin’s forte.
3. The jawbone was drawn back and the looped teeth were wired together.
4. After 6 weeks, and being fed through a glass straw, the jaws were left permanently set in
a normal position.
The patient made a full recovery, with no complications and after some minor adjustments of the
posterior teeth to compensate for the lack of normal wear, the patient had 16 teeth in good
occlusion and was able to eat and enunciate well. He continued to work as a ship’s captain for
many years.
Orthodontic practice 1930-1965
In 1930 Watkin decided to concentrate on Orthodontics and set up a specialist Orthodontic
practice at 84 Rodney Street, Liverpool. Rodney Street was an affluent residential street just
outside the city centre and coincidentally, number 62 was the birthplace of Watkin’s namesake,
William Ewart Gladstone, the Prime Minister. At the time there were only two other such
Orthodontic Specialist Practices in UK, one in London and the other one in Dublin.
Ever interested in educating others about Orthodontics, in 1930, he presented a paper to
the Liverpool and District Odontological Society where he discussed the various forms of dental
malocclusion, borrowing freely from the classification devised by the American Orthodontic
pioneer, Edward Angle.12 With a growing reputation as an outstanding clinician, in 1933, the
British Society honoured him for the Study of Orthodontics by being elected President.
12
Angle, E.H., Dent. Cosmos., 58 (1916), 988. Edward Hartley Angle (1855-1910) was an American
dentist, widely regarded as the father of Orthodontics.
19
Figure 2: Watkin Gladstone Watkin, wearing the insignia of the President of the British Society
for the Study of Orthodontics, 1933. (Source: Watkin personal papers, held by Dr EJS Clifford).
Watkin’s Presidential Address was one of his very few published works and in it he discussed
the problems associated with the welding of stainless steel Orthodontic wire and the importance
of soft tissue, i.e. tongue and cheeks, in achieving stability at the end of Orthodontic treatment.13
The latter observations were very advanced at the time. In 1934 he was elected as President of
the Liverpool Odontological Society, and in 1937, of the West Lancashire, West Cheshire and
North Wales Branch of the British Dental Association.
In his BSSO presidential address he discussed the problems associated with welding steel
wire and the importance of considering the influence of soft tissue when undertaking
Orthodontic correction. Both of these points put him ahead of the field and were later developed
to contribute to his future success. For instance, his paper of 1939 discussed the different devices
available for maintaining the position of corrected teeth and discusses the radical theory that the
bone supporting teeth acts in a similar way to a very viscous liquid, so if there is no stable force
keeping the teeth in a corrected position, they will eventually float back to the pre-treated
position.14 These ranged from a small metal disc, with a raised section in the middle that could be
bitten when relaxing to hold the corrected teeth in place, to a metal pole that protruded out of the
mouth which could be weighted for strengthening the lips. He describes the use of this as being
not unpleasant, rather like sucking on a cigarette.
13
H.G. Watkin, ‘Treated Cases (President’s Address)’, Brit.Soc.Orthodontics (1933) Vol LIII, No.11.
H.G. Watkin, ‘Stabilisation of Treated Cases’, Dental Record June 1939. Original typed script 15.7.38.
Watkin personal papers, held by Dr EJS Clifford.
14
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Watkin Appliances
In the early years of Orthodontics, removable appliances (plates), as opposed to the more
expensive and complex fixed appliances, were commonly used. Watkin, with his intuitive and
inventive mind and engineering skills was attracted to the fixed type. Although these were more
difficult to construct they were more efficient and the design of which gave him more scope for
his ingenuity. One such appliance that fascinated him and had potential for development was the
Pin and Tube Appliance. This was time consuming and, therefore, expensive to construct. It
lacked flexibility and needed adjusting every two to three weeks. Trauma to the teeth could only
be avoided by very careful handling. These shortcomings concerned Watkin so he devised an
adaptation, not only addressing these problems, but also endowing his appliance with extra
beneficial features.
He replaced the rather rigid ‘pin’ with a loop formed in the arch wire that slotted into a
box-tube welded to a metal band cemented to a tooth. This became known as a ‘loop and tube’
attachment. Adjustment of this loop in relation to the box-tube permitted three-dimensional
control of the tooth. This extended the periods between adjustments to six weeks and provided
means for quick arch-wire removal, cleaning, adjustment and reinsertion. The implications for
the patients were great as it meant that they needed fewer appointments and those they had were
shorter. High tensile stainless steel became available for arch wire construction in 1934 giving
the appliances increased efficiency and flexibility, enabling the need for clinical adjustment to be
extended to eight week periods.
The Free-Sliding Arch was essentially a loop and tube appliance at the front but the
correcting wires extended backwards to a banded molar on each side of the mouth. This
Appliance was ideal for retracting and rotating incisor teeth as desired. If prominent incisors
were to be corrected the two backward wires would be bent up or downwards a specific distance
from the molar bands. The end of each wire would then be inserted into horizontal tubes welded
onto the molar bands creating lever-torque tension on the wire that would adjust the incisors
without the molars being moved in reaction. Any incisor rotation that was required could be done
simultaneously by bending the arch wire laterally by the amount and in the direction that would
cause precise correcting forces. These were important clinical attributes at the time but the
technique required accurate and sensitive handling, and in unskilled hands could be unsuccessful
and even harmful.
Figure 3: The Watkin free-sliding arch and loop and tube adaptation. (Source: E.J.S. Clifford,
‘The Watkin Free-Sliding Arch. An introduction’, The Dent. Pract. Vol 16, No 1, (1965), 35.)
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Watkin’s technical skill on the bench and lathe combined with an active and inventive mind
enabled him to construct any pliers, and indeed, apparatus that might aid construction and chairside adjustment of his appliances. The loop and tube appliance relied on controlled bends and
coils in the correcting wire so it was necessary to have a specific tool for the purpose. Initially he
bought high quality surgical pliers and used his lathe to grind the tips to the desired shape.
However, as the use of his adaptation increased he worked with local toolmakers, Elliots, of
Buckland Street Aigburth, in Liverpool who produced the Watkin Pliers commercially. The
Dental Manufacturing Company in London also sold Watkin pliers.
As Watkin’s practice grew he took on a partner Mike Booth, then John Clifford who
initially assisted at Watkin House, then in 1959 became Watkin’s partner and finally, in 1965, his
successor. John became a great advocate of Watkin’s work and published the paper ‘The Watkin
Free-Sliding Arch an introduction in The Dental Practitioner’ 1965 and this substantially raised
the profile of this device.15 The Orthodontist, Hans Eirew, who studied under Watkin at the
Turner Dental School in Manchester, gave a lecture in East Germany around 1980 and presented
the Watkin Fee-sliding Arch as a concept. On his return a year later he was shown some before
and after pictures by one man who had made the appliance out of old cigarette tins. The results
were excellent. The simplicity of the device also made it much easier for the patient to keep it
clean and made simple repairs possible by a non-specialist.
The workshop in the cellar underneath the family home was the place that Watkin spent
most of his spare time, working on his latest project and chain-smoking up to 80 cigarettes a day.
He bought his first lathe, a Drummond round bed lathe, in the early 1920s, which was kept in
basement of Durning Road. He bought parts of an upgraded Myford lathe and built the gearbox
himself, buying the individual gears ready made. He copied the design from the catalogue, as
was it cheaper and more satisfying to make it himself. One of his good friends was Joe Davies
who was a rough, flat capped, odd job man and provided brawn to Watkin’s brains. Joe’s wife
came to work in kitchen. Arthur, Dotty’s son, had come to Liverpool to study Dentistry and he
lodged with the family. Watkin, Arthur and Joe spent many happy hours working together down
in the cellar. Around 1930, with another good friend, Sam Lowey, a Liverpool City Council
Electrical Engineer, he made a radio receiver about as big as three milk bottles. It was housed in
an oblong wooden box with a receiver and had a separate box for the battery. Colleagues and
students would travel far to stay for a few days at his family home, for a small charge, and they
would be trained up in the use of the Watkin Welder and used his equipment to make pliers.
Often they would work together far into the night on his Myford lathe.
Health and safety legislation was far in the future and Watkin was more concerned about
convenience. To go to the cellar they would go down some steep steps, turn right and Watkin
had devised it so that the light turned on automatically on opening the door, much easier if he
was carrying something. The workshop had things hanging from ceiling so taller people would
bang their head. There was no heating, so he set a round unprotected Bunsen burner was on the
concrete floor that was coated in odd stones and bits of machine debris. He used to stand over
this to keep warm and his wife forever had to repair singed trouser turn-ups.
15
E.J.S. Clifford, ‘The Watkin Free-Sliding Arch. An introduction’, The Dent. Pract. Vol 16, No 1,
(1965), 35.
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Watkin’s Role in Orthodontic Education
Even very early in his dental career Watkin showed an active interest in Orthodontic education
as is illustrated in his copy of the BSSO’s Education Committee’s Report of December 1922
where he has highlighted the section which starts: ‘The student qualifies, knowing less of
Orthodontics than of any other branch of dentistry’.16 The highlighted section then goes on to
discuss the advantages and disadvantages of having a specialist lecturer for this subject. So, in
1935 he became a Lecturer in Orthodontics at the Turner Dental School in Manchester and in
1937 in the Liverpool Dental Hospital. This also gave him the advantage that the he could get
reduced tuition fees for both his daughters, as Phyllis studied Dentistry at Manchester and Joyce,
Medicine at Liverpool.
His enthusiasm for his subject was contagious and he loved demonstrating principles and
could make the seemingly impossible appears easy. He would begin his lectures giving out
reproductions of hand drawn diagrams on pieces of card produced on the photographic
equipment he had built. He would introduce a general theme but would very quickly become
engrossed in the fine mechanical details of a specific point. He was not above making a fool of
himself in order to prove a scientific principle. Hans Eirew, an ex-pupil, relates one such
incident:
It was the vogue at the time to say that gravity played a major role in ensuring
stability of the full lower denture and they were made very heavy. Watkin by
this time was a denture wearer and to disprove this theory, stood on his head
and ate a cake! I bet they never forget that lesson!17
He continued this work until the late 1940s and a university record of 1 October 1947 states:
This board wishes to place on record its appreciation of the many years of
skilful and valuable service that have been given by Mr HG Watkin, to express
its gratitude for his help in continuing after the retirement age, pending the
reorganisation of the Orthodontic Department, and to wish him prolonged health
in the future.18
The Watkin Welder
In the 1930s modern materials such as acrylic and stainless steel allowed for cheaper and more
effective appliances. A change from the use of precious metals to stainless steel was eased by the
invention of the spot welder by Watkin Gladstone Watkin. Many dental appliances required fine
spot welding of the components and Watkin discussed this in a paper of 1932.19 The existing
unreliable condenser type of spot welder built up a huge surge of power then often burnt through
the appliance that the practitioner might have spent hours constructing.
Having identified this as a problem he constructed the first Watkin Spot Welder using
materials he already had in his workshop: a carbon arc lamp, two brass rods, a transformer and a
Bowden brake-cable and made a most effective device. His invention had timed contact, which
16
Watkin personal papers, held by Dr EJS Clifford.
Interview with Hans Eirew on 23.8.00.
18
Historical records held by the Liverpool Dental Hospital Museum.
19
H.G. Watkin, Joining Stainless Steel Wires. Brit. Soc. Ortho. Trans., (1932), 43-44.
17
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allowed a much greater success rate when soldering fine wires, especially, steel. It also had a
daisy wheel type head so that the size of the contacts could be changed for different gauges of
wire. He then worked with Elliot’s of Liverpool who produced the welder commercially and
promoted it in the instruction manual: ‘The Watkin welder has been designed by an eminent
orthodontist essentially for the speedy and efficient welding of stainless steel wire and tape.
Weighing only 35lbs, it is completely portable…The Watkin welder has proved invaluable to
other professions, and is used extensively in the engineering, electrical and allied trades.’
The valve maker Mullard used Watkin Welders during and after the Second World War
for valves and it was used by leading Orthodontists, clinicians and hospitals throughout the
world. The Watkin Welder sold widely and it was in use for twenty-five years until an electronic
spot welder superseded it. Watkin did become wealthy through its sales but as he did not believe
in patents he did not make the great fortune he perhaps deserved. Modern spot welders still have
more than a passing resemblance to his original design, especially in the rotating star head
section. Elliots Liverpool Ltd also produced the Watkin Dental Vibrator, but this never sold in
great numbers.
Figure 4: Illustration from the cover of the booklet Specifications and Instructions for the
operation of the Watkin Orthodontic Spot Welder produced by Elliots of Liverpool Ltd. (Source:
Watkin personal papers, held by Dr EJS Clifford.)
With the advent of the Second World War his daughters were evacuated to North Wales for six
months in 1939 because of the threat of bombing. But no bombs fell in Liverpool until they
returned. Watkin’s mother, Isabella, died on 31 December in 1939 while the children were
evacuated and Hilda’s mother, Annie Hayter, who was by then a widow, moved in to live with
the family. Watkin had built an air raid shelter from half of a ship’s boiler at the bottom of the
garden and had it covered to look like rockery. Anderson shelters were available from local
authority at reduced cost, but true to form, Watkin wanted to build his own. The shelter housed
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four bunks and a store of tinned food and the family slept in it nearly every night. During the
worst night of the war in 1941 all windows were blown out of the house, the roof was blown off
and the ground subsided under a bay window. One of his contributions to the dig-for-victory
campaign was to develop an automatic watering, temperature and humidity mechanism for use in
his conservatory at his home in Aigburth, where he grew tomato plants so large that the
prodigious crops broke the plant supports.
After the war his daughter Joyce became a Doctor of Medicine, qualifying from
Liverpool University and Phyllis followed in her father’s footsteps and qualified as a Dental
Surgeon and Orthodontist at Manchester. From the late 1940s Phyllis worked alongside her
father in the Rodney Street practice until her marriage. The Royal College of Surgeons of
England awarded Watkin an F.D.S. without examination in 1947 and the Diploma in
Orthodontics in 1954. His contribution to the advancement of dental science was also recognised
in Scotland when the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow bestowed on him
the Diploma of Dental Orthopaedics, for which examination he was, for a time, on the board
His inventive hobbies
After the war Watkin continued to make new devices using his now extensive tool collection.
When he was asked to list his hobbies he wrote: ‘Photography, particularly in connection with
lectures. Screw-cutting, lathe work and anything mechanical’.20 One of his most legendary
devices was the automatic garage door, which he invented in the 1940s, almost half a century
before they became commonplace in the UK. It worked as follows:
1. The drive and garage gates were left closed with the device activated, entailing much
physical winding and noise.
2. He flicked a switch on the dashboard of his Austin 16 car that sent a current to the front
bumper.
3. The car was driven slowly up to the gates so that the bumpers made electrical contact
with electrodes on the gates to activate a set of motors.
4. Pulleys and chains released bolts and springs and counter-weights dropped causing the
gates and garage doors to swing open and the light turn on. The tale has been
embroidered to say a record then came on playing ‘Home Sweet Home’.
5. The car could then be driven straight in.
Local people knew what time he would come home and would sometimes wait to watch,
some even applauded, others thought it was an accident from the noise. One frequently related
story is that one-day the garage door mechanism failed and Watkin drove straight through the
doors but I suspect that it only refers to his forgetting to use the dashboard switch.
At the Liverpool and District Odontological Society people would go and talk about all
sorts of scientific and technical things, not just related to teeth. About 1949/50 Watkin took
along a donkey engine to the meeting. He had made it himself out of brass and it was six inches
high and six inches long and probably worked using methylated spirits. Recycling was not
popular then but he preferred to reuse materials than buy new, even if that would be more
convenient. For example, if he needed a screw or bolt he would just make it on his Myford lathe,
20
Watkin personal papers, held by the Liverpool Dental Hospital Museum.
25
he even made spare parts for the lathe, using the lathe itself. When the engine failed on his
Morris car, with a problem relating to its cylinder head, he went down his local dealer. Being
told that he would have to buy a whole set, not a single component part – the one he needed, he
went home and made it himself, plus two spares which he took to the garage.
As Watkin was short in stature it would have been especially inconvenient for him to
climb up and wind the high-mounted grandfather clock. He therefore contrived an efficient selfwinding mechanism, although it was not an original idea. Hilda was seldom impressed with his
devices and this was epitomised in his adaptation of the cooker. She had commented that it was
difficult to bend right down and lift a heavy joint from the bottom oven of their cooker. The
following day, when she was out, he cut the cooker in half and mounted the oven on a metal
surgical trolley and plumbed it in so it worked. On returning home she took one look at the result
and banned him from ever working in the kitchen again.
His musical tastes were conventional and he liked waltzes of Strauss (having pleasant
memories of a conference in Vienna) but not sopranos that he called ‘chelping gels’. He would
take advantage of his trips to other cities by attending musicals and like many men at the time
enjoyed anything by Petula Clark. He designed and constructed an electronic flash unit for
clinical photography. It was a big heavy and dangerous piece of apparatus that used condensers.
He also made all his own lanternslides and enlargers. His simple ingenuity was illustrated in the
use of a mirror at 45 degrees to show simultaneous profile and portrait. He then recycled the lead
backing off the used lanternslides to form impression plates. He installed a simple lift, rather like
a dumb waiter, into 84 Rodney Street. It was used to transport the impressions down to the
basement to be cast into models, boxed up and stored between appointments. The lift still works.
Watkin would regularly visit the local scrap yard to see what he could find useful. One such item
was the wing flap actuator motor from a US Air force Liberator Bomber plane that he took home
and made into a conveniently sized hand held grinder. Similar grinders were available
commercially, but Watkin enjoyed the creation process. He used the grinder for trimming the
metal edges of his dental appliances.
Sue Cork (nee Robinson) was an Assistant to both Watkin and John Clifford between
1963 and 1966. ‘I can still picture his beaming smile as one of us helped him into his stiffly
starched white jacket each morning with all the fiddly buttons down the side.’21 Having more
people in the practice gave him more time to lecture and travel to the EOS and BSSO meetings
he so enjoyed. He never refused a request to address colleagues or to demonstrate to overseas
congresses in America and Europe. Although not extravagant with his wealth, he did prefer to
travel by plane before air transport became a popular and generally affordable choice.
As he approached his eighties he no longer lectured, but he stopped even mentioning
retirement from work and just reduced to three days a week. His brain never faltered although he
did become slower with his hands. He continued to attend BSSO monthly meeting in London
and a former pupil, Hans Eirew, would catch the late train back so as to spend time in Watkin’s
company. Watkin always had a waistcoat with pockets full of bits of paper with diagrams, some
spare pliers and wire and would produce a stub pencil and sketch amendments to the most recent
lecturer’s ideas. At the conference there would always be a cluster of people round him as he
demonstrated some new idea. He was realistic about his abilities, not boastful, but not overly
modest. For example, when exhibiting some of his work to a group of specialists in Glasgow and
one said to him, ‘Well Mr Watkin, what products of your ingenuity have you brought to show us
21
Interview with Sue Cork on 21.3.07.
26
today?’ He replied, indicating a specific model, ‘This one is the most ingenious.’22 His work was
recognised and honoured by the highest authorities in the UK:
1947 RCS, honorary FDS
1954 Diploma in Orthodontics from RCSRCS. Eng
1954 Diploma of Dental Orthopaedic Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons Glasgow. (He
also worked for a period on the examination board of the FRCS, Glasgow).
1961 Life Membership of the BDA
1965 Elected President of the Liverpool and District Odontological Society.
On 11 November 1965, he died at the age of 83 years, the day after seeing a full list of patients
and mentioning that he was going to ‘do something with the fridge’. Sue Cork, Practice Assistant
recalls: ‘We were all so sad when he passed away, it was like losing a member of the family and
all the staff attended his funeral, and went back to the family home in Aigburth Road.’23
He was buried in Burslem Cemetery but, thanks to John Clifford, his memory lives on in
both Liverpool and Manchester. 84 Rodney Street was renamed Watkin House about ten years
after his death and a padded upholstered seat in lecture theatre was named after him when
Manchester Dental Hospital refurbished the post-graduate room around 1980. As a teacher his
enthusiasm, technical competence and approachability inspired many students to follow his steps
and many are now leaders in the field of Orthodontics.24
22
Interview with JK Tweedie (nee Watkin) on 18.02.07.
Interview with Sue Cork on 21/2/07.
24
H.G. Watkin Obituary, Brit. Dent. J., 12 (1965).
23