Gilbert John Parfitt was the first department head of the faculty of dentistry at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. He was born on 20 March 1920 in Caversham, Oxfordshire. His father, John Brodribb Parfitt, was a consultant dental surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, London; his mother was Amy Sophie Parfitt née Goodenough. Parfitt studied dentistry at Guy’s and gained his LDS in 1934. He also qualified as a doctor with the conjoint examination in 1939. During the Second World War he was an emergency surgeon in the maxillofacial department at East Grinstead, then pioneering the treatment and reconstruction of the faces of wounded servicemen. After the war, Parfitt was appointed to Guy’s as head of the department of preventive dentistry, then a relatively new field. He subsequently spent four years working with the World Health Organization. He immigrated to the United States, to the University of Alabama, where he began teaching oral medicine. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1961. Two years later, he was appointed to the faculty of dentistry at the University of British Columbia and set up the department of oral medicine and radiology there. He retired in 1974. He wrote more than 50 research publications, was a member of a dozen professional societies and received 15 academic awards. He was married twice. In December 1934 he married Hilda Maud Maxwell, the daughter of a civil servant. They had a son, David Maxwell. In 1954 he married Muriel Martin (or Small). Parfitt died on 12 January 1991 in Ventura County, California. He was 80.