A._J._Cronin_1931a

September 30, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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A. J. Cronin Archibald Joseph Cronin (19 July 1896 – 6 January 1981) was a Scottish novelist and physician. His best-known novel is The Citadel (1937), the story of a Scottish doctor in a Welsh mining village, who quickly moves up the career ladder in London. Cronin had observed the venues closely as a medical inspector of mines and later as a doctor in Harley Street. The book promoted what were then controversial new ideas about medical ethics and helped to inspire the launch of the National Health Service. Another popular mining novel of Cronin's, set in the North East of England, is The Stars Look Down. Both these novels have been adapted as films, as have Hatter's Castle, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years. Cronin's novel Country Doctor was adapted as a long-running BBC radio and TV series Dr. Finlay's Casebook, revived many years later. Early life Cronin was born in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, the only child of a Presbyterian mother, Jessie Cronin (née Montgomerie), and a Catholic father, Patrick Cronin. Cronin often wrote of young men from similarly mixed backgrounds. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from County Armagh, Ireland, and become glass and china merchants in Alexandria. Owen Cronin, his grandfather, had had his surname changed from Cronague in 1870. His maternal grandfather, Archibald Montgomerie, was a hatter who owned a shop in Dumbarton. After their marriage Cronin's parents moved to Helensburgh, where he attended Grant Street School. When he was seven years old, his father, an insurance agent and commercial traveller, died from tuberculosis. He and his mother moved to her parents' home in Dumbarton, and she soon became a public health inspector in Glasgow. Cronin was not only a precocious student at Dumbarton Academy who won many prizes in writing competitions, but also an excellent athlete and footballer. From an early age he was an avid golfer, and he enjoyed the sport throughout his life. He also loved salmon fishing. The family later moved to Yorkhill, Glasgow, where Cronin attended St Aloysius' College in the Garnethill area of the city. He played football for the First XI there, an experience he included in one of his last novels, The Minstrel Boy. A family decision that he should study either to join the church or to practise medicine was settled by Cronin himself when he chose "the lesser of two evils". He won a Carnegie scholarship to study medicine at the University of Glasgow in 1914. He was absent in 1916–1917 for naval service. In 1919 he graduated, with highest honours, with the degree of MBChB. Later that year he made a trip to India as ship's surgeon on a liner. Cronin went on to earn additional qualifications, including a Diploma in Public Health (1923) and his MRCP (1924). In 1925 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow for his dissertation, entitled "The History of Aneurysm".

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