John Desmond Cronin
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
surgeon and politician.
He was born in Simla
Shimla
Shimla , formerly known as Simla, is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of the British Raj in India. A popular tourist destination, Shimla is often referred to as the "Queen of Hills," a term coined by the British...
, British India, (since 1947 known as Shimla), the Summer capital of India in the days of the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
. The family, like many others living in India at the time, had moved there to escape the heat and disease of India's lower altitudes during the summer months. His father, John Patrick Cronin (1889–1952), a director of Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturer founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James Darcy Lever . The brothers had invested in and promoted a new soap making process invented by chemist William Hough Watson, it was a huge success...
', was Lord Leverhulme
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme
William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician....
's representative in India and later Chairman of Horlicks
Horlicks
Horlicks is the name of a company and of a malted milk hot drink. It is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline in the United Kingdom, South Africa, New Zealand, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Jamaica, and under licence in the Philippines and Malaysia....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
Cronin spent the first three years of his life in India until the family returned to their home in Hornsey Lane, Highgate
Highgate
Highgate is an area of North London on the north-eastern corner of Hampstead Heath.Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has an active conservation body, the Highgate Society, to protect its character....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1919. In 1929, the family moved to Woodside Park
Woodside Park
Woodside Park is a suburban residential development in the London Borough of Barnet, in postal district N12.It is very varied in character. The area to the east of the tube station consists predominantly of large Victorian and Edwardian houses, many of which have been converted into flats...
near Totteridge
Totteridge
Totteridge is an area of the London Borough of Barnet in north London, England. It is a mixture of suburban development and open land situated 8.20 miles north north-west of Charing Cross....
in North East Finchley
Finchley
Finchley is a district in Barnet in north London, England. Finchley is on high ground, about north of Charing Cross. It formed an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, becoming a municipal borough in 1933, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965...
. Cronin was educated at St Aloysius' College in Highgate from 1923 to 1924 then at Hodder House, the preparatory school for Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College
Stonyhurst College is a Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Jesuit tradition. It is located on the Stonyhurst Estate near the village of Hurst Green in the Ribble Valley area of Lancashire, England, and occupies a Grade I listed building...
in Clitheroe
Clitheroe
Clitheroe is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England. It is 1½ miles from the Forest of Bowland and is often used as a base for tourists in the area. It has a population of 14,697...
, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, from 1924 to 1930 before going on to Stonyhurst where he studied until 1933.
Cronin wanted to join the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, but his father decided he was to have a career in medicine, and sent him to St Bartholomew's Medical School, part of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. He became a Licentiate
Licentiate
Licentiate is the title of a person who holds an academic degree called a licence. The term may derive from the Latin licentia docendi, meaning permission to teach. The term may also derive from the Latin licentia ad practicandum, which signified someone who held a certificate of competence to...
of the Royal College of Surgeons
Royal College of Surgeons of England
The Royal College of Surgeons of England is an independent professional body and registered charity committed to promoting and advancing the highest standards of surgical care for patients, regulating surgery, including dentistry, in England and Wales...
in 1939, and received a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery in 1940. He was the Resident Surgeon at Grimsby and District Hospital from 1940 to 1941.
He married Cora Mumby-Croft in 1941 and he had three children: Anne Olivia born in 1942, who married Piers Dixon, Conservative MP for Truro 1970-1974, and son of Sir Pierson Dixon, GCMG, Ambassador to France, 1960-1964. They have one son; Piers Alexander Jago, born 1981. Pauline Margaret Cronin was born in 1944, and married Stephen Clarke, the son of Bernard and Doris Clarke. Pauline has two sons; Jonathan, 1965 and, Julian, 1968 and a daughter, Victoria, 1973. Charles John Cronin was born in 1961, married Jane Hockey and has one son, Christopher, and a daughter, Charlotte. Charles served on Westminster City Council
Westminster City Council
Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council and is entitled to be known as a city council, which is a rare distinction in the United Kingdom. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors...
as a Conservative from 1998 to 2002.
Cronin became Surgical Registrar and Surgeon in the Emergency Medical Service at the Royal Free Hospital
Royal Free Hospital
The Royal Free Hospital is a major teaching hospital in Hampstead, London, England and part of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust....
. He joined the army in 1942, serving as a Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
in the Royal Medical Corps and was made a Graded Surgeon after a few months spent as a General Duty Officer. He commanded 50 pioneers in the Normandy landings in 1944 and later worked as a surgeon just outside Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
. He was posted to India at the end of 1944 and was promoted in 1945 to Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
and then to acting Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
. He then served in Burma, working with the forward troops before returning to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1946 to live in Regents Park Road near Regent's Park
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...
, London; he had at that time a consulting room in Harley Street.
In 1947, he passed the examinations to become a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and was appointed as Assistant Orthopaedic Surgeon at the Prince of Wales Hospital later that year. In 1948, he was appointed Orthopaedic Surgeon at the French Hospital.
By this time Cronin had a home and his own consulting room in Wimpole Street. A fluent speaker of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Cronin was first made an Officier of the Légion d'honneur and, in 1967, a Chevalier in recognition of his services. He also became an expert in industrial injuries and from the 1950s he was regularly an expert witness in personal injury cases. He was a founding Director of Racal Electronics Ltd
Racal
Racal Electronics plc was once the third-largest British electronics firm. Listed on the London Stock Exchange and once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, Racal was a diversified company, offering products including: as voice and data recorders; point of sale terminals; laboratory instruments;...
from 1965 until his death in 1986.
In 1948, Cronin joined the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. He became Vice Chairman of the North St Pancras Labour Party in 1950, and was a member of the London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
from 1952–1955. In 1955, he was elected Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Loughborough
Loughborough (UK Parliament constituency)
Loughborough is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election.-Boundaries:...
, representing the Labour Party. He was an Opposition Whip
Whip (politics)
A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy...
in the House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
from 1959 to 1962.
A man believing in socialist principles, Cronin was close friends with Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
and Roy Jenkins
Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM, PC was a British politician.The son of a Welsh coal miner who later became a union official and Labour MP, Roy Jenkins served with distinction in World War II. Elected to Parliament as a Labour member in 1948, he served in several major posts in...
. He rose to become the Shadow
Shadow Cabinet
The Shadow Cabinet is a senior group of opposition spokespeople in the Westminster system of government who together under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition form an alternative cabinet to the government's, whose members shadow or mark each individual member of the government...
Minister of State for Aviation in 1962. In 1964, Cronin wrote a report for Harold Wilson entitled "Ministerial Control of Civil Aviation" in which in he argued for the Ministries of Shipping and Aviation to be combined. Harold Wilson agreed with Cronin and the result was that both ministries were combined and become known as the Ministry of Defence.
In 1965, he was offered a peerage; Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
used George Brown
George Brown, Baron George-Brown
George Alfred Brown, Baron George-Brown, PC was a British Labour politician, who served as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1960 to 1970, and served in a number of positions in the Cabinet, most notably as Foreign Secretary, in the Labour Government of the 1960s...
as his intermediary, but Cronin declined, telling Brown that the House of Commons was the best club in the country, and he was reluctant to leave it. He went on to hold his Loughborough seat until 1979 when he was beaten by the Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Stephen Dorrell
Stephen Dorrell
Stephen James Dorrell is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet of Prime Minister John Major as Secretary of State for National Heritage and Secretary of State for Health...
.
Cronin became a member of Brooks's
Brooks's
Brooks's is one of London's most exclusive gentlemen's clubs, founded in 1764 by 27 men, including four dukes. From its inception, it was the meeting place for Whigs of the highest social order....
, a political club in St James's Street, in 1984 having been proposed as a member by Roy Jenkins. A keen sportsman who hunted
Hunting
Hunting is the practice of pursuing any living thing, usually wildlife, for food, recreation, or trade. In present-day use, the term refers to lawful hunting, as distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species contrary to applicable law...
when young and regularly rode Household Cavalry horses in Hyde Park, he also played polo
Polo
Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team. Sometimes called, "The Sport of Kings", it was highly popularized by the British. Players score by driving a small white plastic or wooden ball into the opposing team's goal using a...
, squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
and tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
. Cronin was an enthusiastic yachtsman
Yachting
Yachting refers to recreational sailing or boating, the specific act of sailing or using other water vessels for sporting purposes.-Competitive sailing:...
— a member of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club
Yacht club
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to sailing and yachting.-Description:Yacht Clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there are some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations...
, based in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, he sailed regularly and was Commodore of the House of Commons Yacht Club. His yacht, named Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
after the founder of the Labour party, was a 17 ton
Long ton
Long ton is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements, as used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries. It has been mostly replaced by the tonne, and in the United States by the short ton...
Bermudian rigged sloop
Bermuda rig
The term Bermuda rig refers to a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is also known as a Marconi rig; this is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats...
and won the Cowes
Cowes
Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...
to Cherbourg Yacht race
Yacht racing
Yacht racing is the sport of competitive yachting.While sailing groups organize the most active and popular competitive yachting, other boating events are also held world-wide: speed motorboat racing; competitive canoeing, kayaking, and rowing; model yachting; and navigational contests Yacht racing...
with Cronin at the helm.
Cronin died on 3 January 1986 whilst out riding in the New Forest
New Forest
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
in Hampshire. In the late afternoon his horse returned home without him: it was feared he might have been thrown and that he could be lying badly injured in freezing weather conditions. The Forest Verderer
Verderer
Verderers are officials in Britain who deal with Common land in certain former royal hunting areas which are the property of The Crown.-Origins:...
s were sent out and found him dead on a forest path, not far from his home at Stoney Cross. A post mortem later found that he had died of a massive heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. His funeral was held at Minstead Church and Sir Ernie Harrison, Chairman of Racal and a close friend of Cronin's, made a valedictory speech from the pulpit during the service. Cronin lies buried in Minstead Church graveyard.