John Frederick Reading was an orthodontist in Sydney, New South Wales. He was born in Sydney in 1927, the only child of Frederick James Reading, who owned a textile company, and Daisy Muriel Reading née Brown. He grew up in Darling Point and Vaucluse, Sydney and was educated at Scots College. At school he played cricket and rugby, was a member of the Air Training Corps and sang in the choir. He had been interested in dentistry from the age of nine, when he was taken to an orthodontist. He worked at the surgery in his holidays, casting models and carrying out other small tasks and later enrolled to study dentistry at the University of Sydney. He graduated in 1944 and initially practised in Orange, New South Wales. He then sailed to England for further training. He was awarded a scholarship at the Eastman Dental Institute, and, in 1952, he gained his fellowship of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was a registrar in orthodontics at the Eastman Dental Clinic and took the diploma in orthodontics. He returned to Sydney and, after a few years working in another practice, opened his own in Macquarie Street in central Sydney and Maroubra, a suburb of the city. He was an inaugural fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons and held secretarial, editorial and presidential positions in the state and federal branches of the Australian Society of Orthodontists. In 1964, while president of the New South Wales branch, he negotiated to establish a master of dental science degree at the University of Sydney. He was a part-time tutor to graduate students for more than 20 years. In 1995 he was awarded an honorary life membership of the Australian Society of Orthodontists. The New South Wales branch also established an annual John Reading prize for the best case study. In 2004 the American Association of Orthodontists honoured him for his pioneering work in orthodontics. In his free time, his main interest was ships and boating. He painted and photographed ships and had an extensive knowledge of naval history. In 1955 he married June Rees. They had two children, Fiona and Graeme, and four grandchildren. Reading died in 2009 at the age of 82 and was survived by his widow and family.