It is difficult to do justice in a few hundred words to the life of Dame Margaret Seward whose career spanned a period of huge changes in UK dentistry, many of which were the result of her own influence and intervention. Born Felicity Bridget Openshaw on 4 August 1935, she was adopted at the age of two and renamed Margaret Helen Elizabeth Mitchell. Her adoptive father, John Hutton Mitchell, was a dentist; her adoptive mother was Marion Findlay Mitchell née Duncan. Margaret was educated at Latymer School in Edmonton, north London, where she was head girl and later became chair of its governors. She graduated from the London Hospital Dental School in 1959, becoming the London Hospital’s first female resident dental house surgeon. In 1962, having obtained her FDS RCS, she married Gordon Seward, then a senior lecturer in oral surgery at the London. Following the birth of the first of their two children, Margaret took a career break. Her research conducted during this time led to the award, in 1970, of the master of dental surgery degree, the first to be made to a woman by London University. This was on the complications associated with deciduous tooth eruption; the first time the subject had been dealt with seriously since the meeting of the Medical Society of London in 1884. Gradually returning to practice, Margaret became aware of the problems of women trying to do so. In a letter to the *British Dental Journal* she suggested that there should be a retainer scheme for women with domestic responsibilities. This led to a notable paper in 1974, co-authored with Desmond Greer Walker, on how this might be introduced, something which eventually came into being nine years later (‘The need to retain women dentists in practice’ *Br Dent J.* 1974 Oct 15;137[8]:319-21). In 1976, whilst serving as secretary to both the British Paedodontic Society and the section of odontology of the Royal Society of Medicine, Margaret was elected to the General Dental Council – once again a first for a woman. In 1979 she became the first woman editor of the *British Dental Journal*. Here she soon persuaded the British Dental Association (BDA) to provide proper staff and office space. The findings of her readership survey led to several changes in the loss-making journal and soon achieved a rising impact factor. Margaret also used it to promote continuing education initiatives. Notable among these was ‘Teamwork’, a distance-learning programme which, with financial support from the four UK health departments, helped dentists in general practice to train their dental nurses. Margaret later became editor of the *International Dental Journal*, remaining in the post for ten years. Well aware of the continuing discrimination against female dentists, in 1985 she explained the problem to Edwina Currie, then a minister for health, and suggested a tailored course for women returning to practice. The resultant departmental grant led to a pilot programme at the London Hospital, which soon became a model for other courses. In 1993, Margaret assumed the BDA’s presidency. She was by this time vice-dean of the English Faculty of Dental Surgery and president of the odontology section of the Royal Society of Medicine. In the following year, she became the first woman president of the General Dental Council (GDC). Here she continued to encourage lifelong learning and achieved a notable ‘accord’ between the universities and Royal College, which allowed the GDC as the ‘sole competent authority’ to introduce specialist lists for dentistry. In 1994, she was honoured with a CBE. Her final year as president of the GDC saw the publication of the Government’s *NHS plan for England*. Her final council meeting achieved the approval of the statutory regulation of professionals complementary to dentistry. It was therefore inevitable that she would now be persuaded to become the Chief Dental Officer for England, responsible for taking forward the Government’s programme ‘Modernising NHS dentistry for the twenty-first century’. In 1999 she received the DBE, becoming the first dental dame. Not surprisingly, Dame Margaret gained many other honours in her life. These included doctorates from the universities of Newcastle and Birmingham, the Colyer Gold Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a fellowship of Queen Mary and Westfield College. She was also made an honorary member of the American Dental Association and the American College of Dentists. But for all those who knew her, Margaret remained a very approachable, energetic and fun-loving person, who carried out her numerous responsibilities with great tact and good humour. Dame Margaret Seward died on 22 July 2021. She was 85. Chris Stephens Stanley Gelbier