Profile
Making history T
Robin Graham is the archivist at the British Dental Association’s West of Scotland branch. It’s given him a fresh perspective on the dental profession
he recent launch of the national John McLean Archive by the British Dental Association (BDA) underlines the
importance to branches of main- taining records that lay out the profession’s past activities – both professional and political. In the West of Scotland, main-
taining a branch archive of records and minute books from as far back as the early years of the 20th century recently took on added significance, when flooding destroyed much of the historical material stored at the Glasgow Dental Hospital. The lost material included archives
from the Henry Nobel History of Dentistry Research Group, as well as the records and meeting notes from the hospital’s own BDA branch. The Odontological Society – based at the dental hospital and almost as old as the BDA itself – also suffered losses in the catastrophe.
40 Scottish Dental magazine Dentist Robin Graham is the
new archivist at the West of Scot- land BDA branch – a role he took over from founding archivist Bob McKechnie who, for many years, had looked after the various books and records relating to the branch’s 92-year history. Robin, a dental practitioner in
the same practice in the east end of Glasgow for 45 years, has been an active member of the branch since he qualified in 1966. He became interested in dental
politics in the early 70s and joined the West of Scotland branch as secre- tary of the Glasgow East section. Robin was elected as a council member and eventually became secretary and branch president. However, he assumed his branch
archivist role only a few months ago, when he was contacted by his predecessor’s widow and invited to clear her house of a room full of boxed records.
He now has title to between 20
and 30 books of record – and is in demand from other societies and branches who all lost valuable mate- rial as a result of the flood earlier this year. “The loss of so much material
must have been devastating,” he said. “The local BDA branch, the Henry Noble research group and the Odon- tological Society have all been in touch with me to see if I can provide access to some of the material they lost. I hope our archive will help them to retrieve some of it at least.” The oldest record concerns the
inauguration of the West of Scot- land branch in January 1918 – a handwritten account of those who attended the meeting and the formal agenda for what took place. Many of the accounts since those days are similarly scripted in long-hand and events are meticulously recorded. Robin told Scottish Dental maga-
zine: “The archive material is a crucial record of the evolution of dental politics, and of the advancement of the dental profession in the West of Scotland since 1918. And it’s credit to the hard work and perseverance of Bob McKechnie that this wealth of written information is still around.”
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