Frank Colyer
Sir James Frank Colyer (1866–1954) was a British dental surgeon and historian. He trained at Charing Cross Hospital and the Royal Dental Hospital, earning the Licentiate in Dental Surgery in 1887 and, two years later, becoming a MRCS and LRCP.
Colyer worked at the Royal Dental Hospital as a house officer and demonstrator of operative dentistry, then became a full surgeon. He served as dean from 1904 to 1909. In 1893 he also became the dental surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital.
During the First World War, he was a consulting dental surgeon to Croydon War Hospital and the Ministry of Pensions. For these services he was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in January 1920. In 1922 he was elected the first president of the British Society of Dental Surgeons, which he helped form to oppose the admission of unqualified dentists to the British Dental Association.
Colyer was also an expert on the history of dentistry. In 1900 he was appointed honorary curator of the odontological museum at the Royal Dental Hospital, later moved to the Royal College of Surgeons, and he held the position for life.
Publications
- Dental Surgery and Pathology (co-authored with Evelyn Sprawson; eight editions in his lifetime)
- Old Instruments for Extracting Teeth (1952)
- Dental Disease and its Relation to General Medicine (1911)
- John Hunter and Odontology (1913)
- Chronic General Periodontitis, and Variations and Diseases of the Teeth of Animals (1936; with later revised editions)
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 10:50 (CET).