McCrae, John, 1872-1918 : John (Jack) McCrae was born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1872, the son of a mill owner, stockbreeder, and militiaman, David McCrae and his wife, Janet (neé Eckford). His older brother, Tom, was born in 1870, and a younger sister, Geills, was born in 1878. He was educated at the Guelph Central School and Guelph Collegiate Institute and joined the Guelph Highland Cadets. He won a scholarship to the University of Toronto, where he began his undergraduate work at University College in 1888. His extra-curricular activities included the militia (Toronto's Queen's Own Rifles), the Varsity Glee Club and rugby. Asthma, from which he had always suffered, led McCrae to leave the university in 1893 and he returned to Guelph where he obtained a post teaching at the Agricultural College. During the summer of 1893, he passed a militia artillery officer's course in Kingston and in the fall returned to the University of Toronto to complete his degree. He began to publish short stories and poems in the 'The Varsity'.
After studying marine biology in Massachusetts during the summer of 1894, McCrae was awarded a fellowship in biology at the University of Toronto, where he began to study medicine, as his brother had done before him . He continued to write, winning a 'Saturday Night' short story competition in 1894, and his poems were published in 'The Canadian Magazine', 'The Westminister' and 'Massey's Magazine'. McCrae spent the summers of 1896 and 1897 practising medicine in a children's convalescent home, the Robert Garrett Hospital in Mount Airy, Maryland, and visiting John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He received his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1899, graduating with honours. He did his residency at the Toronto General Hospital and briefly joined his brother Tom at John Hopkins, working under William Osler. In 1899 he accepted a fellowship at McGill University, but his work in the pathological labs at the Royal Victoria Hospital under George Adami was cut short by the Boer War. McCrae joined the second contingent of Canadian soldiers volunteering for the war in South Africa, with the rank of lieutenant in the artillery brigade. He served in South Africa through 1900, returning to Canada in January 1901.
McCrae resumed his life in Montreal, doing research in pathology, preparing papers, teaching and practising medicine. He travelled to Europe in 1902 and 1906, to further his studies and take the Royal College of Physicians examinations, and was in Europe again in 1913, when he attended the International Medical Congress in London. He continued to work stints at John Hopkins Hospital and taught courses at the University of Vermont Medical College in Burlington. He was active in the militia, and attained the rank of major. In 1910, he served as expedition physician on Governor General Lord Grey's expedition from Norway House to Hudson's Bay by canoe and back to Quebec via Labrador by steamer. And he continued to write and publish poems in 'The McGill University Magazine', as well as medical articles and, with George Adami, 'A Textbook of Pathology for Students of Medicine'.
At the outbreak of the First World War, McCrae was in London, where he had planned a holiday. He returned to Canada and joined the First Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, under Edward W.B. Morrison, with the rank of major. He left Canada in October 1914 and was sent as part of the First Canadian Division to Flanders in April 1915. His most famous poem, 'In Flanders Fields', was written during the second battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915 and was published in 'Punch' magazine in December 1915. In late May 1915, McCrae was appointed the chief medical officer of the planned Canadian General Hospital at Boulogne. He took up his duties in August 1915, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and spent the next two and half years tending the wounded. In January 1918, he was appointed consultant physician to the British armies in the field, but before he could take up the appointment he contracted pneumonia and died on 28 January 1918.
McCrae's poems were published in a posthumous collection 'In Flanders Fields, and Other Poems' (1919), with a biographical sketch by his colleague and friend, Sir Andrew Macphail.
