John Desmond Cronin

Who was John Desmond Cronin?

John Desmond Cronin was a British surgeon and Labour Party politician.

He was born in Simla, British India, the Summer capital of India in the days of the British Raj. 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, a director of Lever Brothers', was Lord Leverhulme's representative in India and later Chairman of Horlicks, Australia.

Cronin spent the first three years of his life in India until the family returned to their home in Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London in 1919. In 1929, the family moved to Woodside Park near Totteridge in North East Finchley. Cronin was educated at St Aloysius' College in Highgate from 1923 to 1924 then at Hodder House, the preparatory school for Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe, Lancashire, from 1924 to 1930 before going on to Stonyhurst where he studied until 1933.

Cronin wanted to join the Royal Navy, 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.