Archibald Joseph Cronin Biography - Scottish Novelist and Physician

Archibald Joseph Cronin Biography - Scottish Novelist and Physician Born in Cardross, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, Cronin was the only son of a Catholic father and a Protestant mother and later, he would write about a young man in a similar context (The Green Years). He was a precocious student at Dumbarton Academy first and Gonzaga College later, and won many writing competitions. Due to his exceptional abilities, he was awarded a scholarship to study medicine at the University of Glasgow. There he met his future wife, Agnes Mary Gibson, who was also a medical student. He graduated with many honors in 1919. Cronin practiced as a doctor in various hospitals, before serving as a surgeon in the Royal Navy, during World War I. After the war, he started a practice in a mining area in the South Wales area and was appointed the Medical Inspector of Mines. He used his experiences of the effects of the mining industry on workers’ health for later novels of his such as The Citadel, set in Wales, and The Stars Look Down, set in north-east England. He eventually settled in London, and practiced on Harley Street. On his vacation in the Scottish Highlands, he wrote his first novel, The Castle of Hate, which achieved immediate success. It tells the story of James Brodie’s Scottish family, ruined by the pride, stubbornness and bigotry of his patriarchy. In the late 1930s, Cronin moved to the United States with his wife and his three children, later moving to New Canaan, Connecticut. Later, he returned to Europe and for the last 25 years of his life, he lived in Switzerland. He continued to write until he was eighty years old. He died on January 6, 1981 in Montreux, Switzerland. #ArchibaldJosephCronin #biography