200 Years Ago in Norwich : Surgeon and Mechanical Dentist in Pubs

And another in my series of posts that caught my eye from the Norwich Mercury of 200 years ago.

“MR. WOODCOCK, SURGEON AND MECHANICAL DENTIST, OF LYNN,

RESPECTFULLY informs his Friends and the Public, that he may be consulted in the several branches of his profession,

At the Hoste Arms, Burnham Market, on Monday and Tuesday, the 24th and 25th January inst.

At the Fleece, Wells, on Wednesday, the 26th.

And at the Red Lion, Fakenham, on Thursday and Friday, the 27th and 28th.

Lynn, January, 1825.”

A mechanical dentist is a phrase that was used for over 100 years and this is someone who made dentures and other dental appliances. But, what I rather like is that he wasn’t operating from a dental office, but was instead travelling to different towns and meeting patients in various pubs. I rather like this glimpse into what healthcare looked like in rural England in the early nineteenth century, for those with at least a little money at least. And meeting patients in a pub seems a quite marvellous idea to me.

What is also rather positive is that the three pubs mentioned are all still operating 200 years on. The Fleece is better known now as the Golden Fleece and the Red Lion closed in 1974 and was turned into council offices, but then reopened as a bar around twenty-five years ago. There’s something reassuring knowing that 200 years on, these pubs are all still there (although the Red Lion seems to be a little tentative at the moment) although I don’t think that they have anyone going around offering tooth repair.