Over the last couple of years I have wondered if Dentist on Collins could be the oldest dental practice in Melbourne.
Ralph Reginald Isaacs of North Adelaide entered his Indentureship to Mark Victor Napoleon Cohn in 1902, beginning a very restrictive 3-year term to learn the arts and mysteries of dentistry.
Some time between 1905 and 1910 Ralph moved to Melbourne and started a practice at 18 Brunswick Street Fitzroy moving the practice to 10 Bourke Street in 1925. The first reference to him is in the Victorian Government Gazette in 1910.
At some later date he was joined by Joseph O’Dwyer who was the last practicing Permittee in Melbourne, retiring in 1974. In the early years the Spring Street end of Bourke Street had several practices operating there and was known as ‘the blood and vulcanite end of Bourke Street’.
Just around the corner the first Dental School was located on the corner of Spring and Little Bourke Streets. The building was later the home of the Forensic and Fingerprint departments of Victoria Police. In the late 80’s the building was demolished, and Holmes College occupies the site today.
Ralph retired in 1950, after selling the practice to Richard Horst Jacobs, one of the ‘Dunera Boys’ , who were a boatload of male Jewish refugees from England.
Toward the end of the 2nd World War the Australian authorities realised that these men who were interned at Tatura were genuine refugees and enlisted some of them in the Australian Army. The war ended before they were deployed, but they were eligible for benefits as returned soldiers.
Horst studied Dentistry in Brisbane and moved to Melbourne after graduating. Joe O’Dwyer continued working under the direction of a registered dentist as then required by the Dental Act. He built the practice up and enjoyed an excellent reputation with the European migrants as he preferred to save teeth whenever he could, often telling his patients ‘you only have dentures if you have no other choice’.
I joined the practice on the 1st April 1974 when Joe retired, purchasing the practice in 1982.
One anecdote that Horst told me about Ralph was that he had a premium guaranteeing ‘painless ordinary extractions’. He never paid out that premium because according to Ralph, any extraction that was painful was, by definition, not an ordinary extraction. In the early days advertising was permissible, and Ralph had an advertisement at Flinders Street railway station featuring a picture of the cartoon character Alfred E Neuman with a missing front tooth with the caption ‘didn’t hurt a bit’.
The layout of 10 Bourke Street was 2 surgeries in the front a waiting room in the middle and 2 surgeries at the back. The stairs to the first floor were in the waiting room with a hand pointing up the stairs to surgeries 8, 9 and 10, which did not exist but gave the impression of a large practice in a building barely 3.6 metres wide.
After the sale of 10 Bourke Street, I moved the Practice to 26 Liverpool Street in 1993, moving it yet again to its present location at 15 Collins Street on the 1st of April 2000 exactly 26 years after my joining the practice.
The last 26 years have seen amazing changes to the city of Melbourne. Collins and Bourke Streets now meet in the Docklands precinct, Southbank and the Victoria Market areas are now home to a veritable forest of high-rise buildings.
My own view from the surgery started with a sweeping vista from Southbank to the Kings domain and the Myer Music Bowl with Mt Eliza in the distance over Port Phillip Bay. Now I have a restricted view between two high-rise buildings. Around the corner in Spring Street there are now 4 tall apartment towers overlooking Treasury Gardens, somewhat reminiscent of 5th Avenue overlooking Central Park in New York.
In the 2021 census the CBD had 5,500 residents and this continues to grow. Covid 19 had a devastating effect on the city, but it is steadily recovering and will continue to do so. In 2008 I rebranded the Practice as ‘Dentist On Collins’ and later trademarked the brand.
Ralph worked for 40 years, Horst for 38 years and I have now passed 52 years in the Practice.
Image from unsplash, rights National Gallery Victoria