Huia Masters Pickard, known as ‘Pick’, was a pioneering professor of restorative dentistry at the Royal Dental Hospital in London. He was born on 25 March 1909 in Masterton, New Zealand, the son of Ernest Pickard and Sophie Elizabeth Pickard née Robins, but at an early age went with his family to England. He was educated at Latymer School in Edmonton, and in 1927 began studying at the Royal Dental Hospital’s London School of Dental Surgery in Leicester Square. He qualified with a licentiate in dental surgery in 1932, and went on to Charing Cross Hospital medical school, qualifying as a doctor with the conjoint examination in 1936. After house posts at the Royal Dental Hospital, he went into general practice, working with Wilfred Fish. During the Second World War, he initially worked at East Grinstead with the Emergency Medical Service, but in 1940 joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a medical officer. He went with the 8th Army to North Africa, where he became a trainee surgical specialist. He was mentioned in despatches. After the war, he returned to dentistry, spending half his week teaching conservative dentistry at the Royal Dental Hospital and half in private practice in Harley Street. He gained his fellowship of the newly established faculty of dental surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1949. In 1955 he became a consultant and director of the department of conservative dentistry at the Royal Dental Hospital. He was a reader from 1957 to 1963 and professor from 1963 to 1974. From 1965 to 1974 he was head of the enlarged department of restorative dentistry. He divided the restorative department into three divisions – conservative dentistry, fixed and removable prosthodontics and complete dentures – with the aim of giving young hospital dentists a broad training in each area. He was an examiner for the universities of London, Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham and Wales, as well as for the Royal College of Surgeons of England. At the Royal Dental Hospital Pickard also started the innovative Commonwealth lectureship scheme, whereby young male academics from Commonwealth countries were appointed to the hospital for three years, to teach, research and take the FDSRCS exam. Pickard’s influential textbook *A manual of operative dentistry* (London, Oxford University Press) was first published in 1961, and was subsequently published in multiple editions, latterly renamed *Pickard’s manual of operative dentistry*. He also wrote papers for the *Dental Record*, the *British Dental Journal* and the *International Dental Journal*. Pickard was a founder member and first president of the British Society for Restorative Dentistry (from 1968 to 1969). He also started an annual Conservation Teachers Conference, which met at a different dental school every year. In 1971 he was president of the odontological section of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1983 he was awarded the Tomes medal of the British Dental Association. In 1945 he married Daphne (‘Dafy’) Evelyn Marriott. They had two daughters and several grandchildren. At one time he and Dafy ran the Nuttery in Newham, Northamptonshire, an historic cobnut orchard, now gifted to the Woodland Trust. Pickard died on 17 July 2002 at the age of 93. As one of his obituarists wrote: ‘Pick was an excellent clinician, a wonderful teacher and a man with strong and progressive views about how dentistry should be taught and practised.’