Francis Fish was head of the department of dental prosthetics at the London Hospital dental school. He was born on 23 April 1912 in Plaistow, East London, the son of Francis Raymond Fish, a foreman at a disinfectant works, and Elizabeth Fish née How. Fish studied dentistry at the London Hospital and

William Ronald Edwards Laird qualified from the University of Glasgow in 1962. Following dental practice in London, Ronnie returned to Glasgow to become Lecturer in Pharmacology and then Dental Prosthetics. It was here that he met Kay, his wife, who worked as a staff nurse in the oral surgery depart