Ward's Book of Days. Pages of interesting anniversaries. What
happened on this day in history. On this day in history in 1896,
was born A J Cronin. Cronin was a physician and author whose
novels combined reality with social criticism. Archibald Joseph
Cronin was born on 19th July 1896, at Cardross, Dunbartonshire,
the only child of a Patrick and Jessie Cronin, farm workers.
Despite family poverty and the early demise of his father,
Cronin received an education at Dunbarton Academy, where he
excelled in writing English prose. Despite his ability in the
arts, Cronin proceeded to read medicine at Glasgow University,
where his studies were disrupted by the onset of the First World
War. He enlisted in the Royal Navy, where he served as a
surgeonís assistant and, after the war, returned to Glasgow to
take his degree in 1919. In 1921, he set up in practice in South
Wales, and in 1924, was appointed as Medical Inspector of Mines.
He was distressed by the deleterious effects of the mines, not
only on the workers' heal