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Benjamin William FICKLING (G24-27)

1909-2007

With his father and uncle both Old Framlinghamians and dental surgeons Ben must have been destined from an early age to follow in their footsteps, with much assistance from the physics teaching of Mr. Beasley at Framlingham. He studied dentistry and medicine as a combined course at the Royal Dental and St George’s Hospital where he later progressed to senior status. Initially he worked with his father at his surgery in Sloane Street but having passed a primary fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons before his 21st birthday he went on to a final fellowship in 1937 after studying for a time in Vienna.

On the declaration of war, Ben joined Warwick Jones, also a surgeon who had treated jaw casualties at the end of WW1, and together they wrote a text book entitled “Injuries of the Jaws and Face”, published in 1940, when no comparable book was available in English. After the blitz, spent at St. George’s Hospital, Ben joined the Maxello-Facial Unit in Hill End Hospital, run by the brilliant plastic surgeon Rainsford Mowlem. The rest of the war was spent rebuilding faces and jaws. This later became the Department of Dental Surgery at Mount Vernon Surgery where he served until 1974.

To list Ben’s appointments, achievements and talents would be impossible in the space available but he has been an examiner in Dental Surgery at London University and the Royal College of Surgeons, Dean of the Faculty of Dental Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons and President of the Odontological Section of the Royal College of Medicine. For his posts as Senior Dental Surgeon, Civilian Dental Consultant to the Royal Navy and his other achievements he was awarded the CBE in 1973. Above all else probably his greatest influence was as an educator and technical innovator and some of his instruments are still in use today. He was one of the first to use antibiotics for dentistry initially during the war when his only access to them was by draining the dregs used in other applications.

When he died in January 2007 he was the 2nd oldest living OF.

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