Peta Smith was head of the department of paediatric dentistry at King’s College Hospital, London. She qualified from the London Hospital Dental School at a time when it was the acknowledged centre of undergraduate teaching in what was then known as paedodontics. After gaining her FDSRCS and having decided on a career in children’s dentistry, Peta was appointed as the first lecturer in paediatric dentistry to King’s College Hospital Dental School. There, as a dedicated and popular teacher, she devoted her efforts to setting up the undergraduate course in paediatric dentistry which, up until that time, had been included within dental conservation. At the same time she provided specialist treatment for cases beyond the skills of the undergraduate. Eventually she became the senior lecturer and head of department and, as an honorary NHS consultant, she had sessions at Sydenham Children’s Hospital (until it closed in 1991) plus a day a week at St George’s Hospital Tooting, where she built up a new children’s dental unit with her orthodontic colleague Stephen Powell. She is still fondly remembered by all who knew her as being exceptionally caring and kind to patients and staff alike. Outside dentistry, a keen botanist, Peta had travelled widely in the 1960s, notably overland to Nepal to collect rhododendron specimens. On her retirement in 2008 she moved to her farm in Argyll to devote herself to care of her sheep and garden. She died on 12 March 2022 aged 83 and was survived by her husband Vinh.