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Major General John
Percival Helliwell CBE:
a brief history
Col (Retd) Quentin Anderson
Youngest son of a corn mill worker, John Percival Helliwell (Fig 1) was born in 1884 in Todmorden in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In the early 1890s the family moved to Stretford, Manchester where his father became a ‘Cotton Cloth Buyer.’ Here he attended the local school in Old Trafford until he left full-time education at age 12.
After leaving school he found employment with a local dentist as a dental workroom boy and surgery assistant. Prior to the
1921 Dentist Act, for those without formal university and dental school education, this was often the first stage of an apprenticeship style training which would ultimately lead
to independent dental practice. By 1906, however, he had, in his own time, attained the academic qualifications to secure a place at the Victoria University of Manchester dental school and qualified LDS RCSEng in 1908. After undertaking hospital posts as a House Surgeon and then Demonstrator in the Orthodontic Department he responded to a War Office advertisement for civilian dental surgeons to work in India. Selected for the post, he and two others were posted to India in 1910 to provide treatment for over 70,000 British soldiers stationed there! Whilst the number of civilian dental surgeons gradually rose from three to ten over the next few years, after three years he returned to the UK to get married and begin work in a dental practice in London.
Following the acceptance of registered dental surgeons into clinical roles in the Army in late 1914, he volunteered to join the Army and was commissioned on 1 Feb 1915 as a Temporary Lieutenant on the Special List for duties as a dental surgeon. He was posted to Eastern Command and promoted to Temporary Captain twelve months later.
In a paper on “Army Dental Treatment in Wartime” that he had published in 1917 he
is identified as Inspecting Dental Surgeon, London District. This appears to have been his appointment from first commissioning along with the same responsibility for Eastern Command and is in line with the fact that at that time Eastern Command shared many appointments and services with the independent London District.
At the outbreak of the First World War many dental surgeons and dental mechanics volunteered for the Combat Arms as there were no clinical dental posts on the Army’s establishment. Even when clinical roles were
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identified, these individuals remained with their front-line regiments and additional civilian dental surgeons and mechanics were recruited for the newly established dental roles. In October 1915, a scheme
to encourage volunteers for service was introduced by the Director General of Recruiting. This exempted few dentists and no dental mechanics from service in the Combat Arms. This situation raised concerns for the profession’s continued ability to support the civilian population. The BDA appealed to the Director of Recruiting and to the Director General Army Medical Services (DGAMS), Sir Alfred Keogh, but were rebuffed. DGAMS was “of the opinion that neither dentists nor their mechanics should be excused as a class from military service.”
The situation was exacerbated by the introduction of the Military Service Act in January 1916 which introduced conscription but, again, did not exempt dental staff from general conscription into the Combat Arms. By the end of 1916 there was an acute shortage of dentists in general practice and whilst some measures were introduced to try and ameliorate the situation, medically fit dentists under 35 who were not exempted by their local Tribunal were still eligible for conscription into the Combat Arms. By the end of 1917, even with 500 dental officers now in clinical roles in the Army, overseas theatres, apart from the Western Front, were poorly provided for. This led to the forming of The Parliamentary Committee on “Manpower and the Army Dental Service;” the Pennefather Committee.
In its report in December 1917, the committee made five recommendations. These can be summarised as:
1. Improve the dental state of recruits before they are deployed overseas.
2. Increase the number of dental surgeons at Base Camps and Casualty Clearing Stations and the use of mobile dental facilities.
3. Increase the number of specially trained dental surgeons able to assist medical officers in the treatment of jaw wounds.
4. Withdraw from combatant and other non-clinical roles all dentists now
in the Army or who may come up for recruitment and employ them in clinical roles.
5. Place the organisation of the military
Fig 1. John Percival Helliwell. Photograph by Walter Stoneman © National Portrait Gallery, London
dental service under the general direction of one or more experienced dental surgeons responsible to DGAMS and the medical chain of command.
The report was accepted by Parliament and its recommendations implemented. This was to have a profound effect in shaping Helliwell’s future.
In January 1918 Helliwell was appointed as DGAMS’s dental adviser at the War Office and promoted to Temporary Major “whilst specially employed”. Two months later he was promoted to Temporary Lieutenant Colonel and four Temporary Majors were appointed as Inspecting Dental Officers (IDO) for the Home Commands. By August 1918, the release of dentists from non-clinical roles had contributed to an increase of 50% in Army dental officer manning. This allowed Helliwell to concentrate resources on the appropriate treatment of recruits prior to their deployment overseas. He also turned his attention to plans for improving the field dental service, however, the German Spring Offensive and subsequent Allied Counter- offensive stalled their implementation which were still incomplete by the
time of the Armistice.
Despite not having served overseas during WW1, Helliwell was twice ‘mentioned’ for valuable medical services rendered in connection with the war (in 1917 & 1919) and in 1919 was also made a CBE.
1919 saw rapid demobilization and the return of many dental officers to their civilian practices. Some, including Helliwell, saw
the need to maintain a uniformed dental service and volunteered to continue to serve. As Special List officers on temporary commissions, however, they had no Corps or Regimental ‘home,’ limited time to serve on a temporary commission, concerns over levels of pay and no career structure. The BDA, who had long campaigned for the establishment of a permanent uniformed
EDUCATION