Harold Gladstone Watkin

Harold Gladstone Watkin (born 17 January 1882 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, died 11 November 1965), known by many of his contemporaries as “Watty”, is considered one of the most pioneering English orthodontists of the early 20th Century.

Watkin first worked in the Equipment Department of the National Telephone Company and helped develop the first fully automatic telephone exchange in Staffordshire Potteries that opened in 1904. Also in 1904, Watkin built his own X-ray machine and 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 he studied at the Liverpool School of Dental Surgery and qualified in 1918 with an LDS Liv. From 1919 to 1930, Watkin practiced 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.

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 discusses the extreme Bull Dog Jaw condition which was corrected.

Watkin set up a specialist orthodontic practice at 84 Rodney Street, Liverpool in 1930. At the time there were only two other such orthodontic specialist practices in UK, one in London and the other one in Dublin. With a growing reputation as an outstanding clinician, in 1933, he became President of the British Society for the Study of Orthodontics. 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 contributed to his success.

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.