In November 1914 the Shipley Education Committee announced the appointment of dental surgeon Albert Ernest Ellison at a board meeting of the Sir Titus Salt Hospital. He was to become School Dentist at the Hospital’s School Clinic, a replacement to H Alvin Mahony.
Ellison was born in Bradford in September 1862. He hadn’t followed in the footsteps of his father, a master jeweller, but instead became a dentist surgeon’s apprentice.
By 1983 Ellison was being described as ‘a dentist of well known, practical skill, judgement and long experience’. He had become a partner of Dr Charles F Forsham, founder of the Bradford Dental Hospital. Together they served people from all classes of society.
Newspaper advertisements proclaimed that they extracted teeth with the greatest skill. They were inventors of the ‘Nerve Destroyer’, an instant cure for toothache obtainable for just 1 shilling. A ‘master of dental surgery’, Mr Ellison personally supervised the laboratory devoted to the making of artificial teeth.
Census returns for 1911 show him living with his wife and children at 461 Killinghall Road.
School dental clinic
Regular newspaper reports at the time revealed the poor state of children’s teeth. One report stated that treatment received by 41 children who were seen from July 11 – 25th 1917 had included 47 extractions, 31 fillings, and other procedures. Ellison had inspected the teeth of 290 children, of these only nine passed as having good teeth and only eight with one or two bad teeth.
In 1919 the Shipley Times and Express reported that the dentist tried to save as many children’s teeth as possible to prevent a generation wearing false teeth. A year later, Ellison reported on the problem of parents not sending their children to dentists. In June he had selected 120 children for treatment but had only received 36 replies from parents – 34 consenting to a visit, one refusing, and one visiting their own dentist.
Although there is no known date of his retirement, the Shipley Education Committee advertised for a school dentist at the end of April 1922, a position later filled by Mr J Munro Macrae. Ellison’s death was registered in 1926.
References
Shipley Times and Express Friday 31 August 1917
Shipley Times and Express Friday 16 May 1919
Shipley Times and Express Friday 03 September 1920