[4] Lilian Lindsay on her career choice"Miss Buss … sent for me and announced that I was destined to be a teacher of the deaf and dumb.

Lindsay was able to secure a three-year apprenticeship in dentistry through a family friend, but did not feel this was enough and sought to enrol in dental school.

She passed preliminary examinations, and in 1892 she applied for entry to the National Dental Hospital in Great Portland Street.

The dean, Henry Weiss, refused to admit her because she was a woman; he was so concerned that she would distract the male students that he interviewed her on the pavement outside the school.

[4] He also advised her not to apply to the Dental Hospital of London as the Royal College of Surgeons of England did not allow women to sit their examinations at that time.

Even then she met with the disapproval of some of the Edinburgh staff; Sir Henry Littlejohn remarked "I am afraid, madam, you are taking the bread out of some poor fellow's mouth.

She met her future husband, Robert Lindsay, a member of the teaching staff, on her first day at the dental school.

in 1895, the first woman to qualify as a dentist in the United Kingdom (others had previously travelled abroad to America amongst other countries to gain a qualification).

She continued to expand the BDA library until her death in 1960, and received a number of awards and honorary degrees during this time.