RCSI Heritage Collections receives many visitors from all over the world, all with a varying array of backgrounds. However, one thing these visitors do have in common is a keen interest in medicine and more particularly, a keen interest in the history of medicine. So, with that in mind where else would ones first port of call when visiting Dublin be??? RCSI of course, due to its rich history and breadth of material relating to that very topic.
One recent visitor, Dr Peter Mohr, FRCP, a retired neurologist from the Manchester area and honorary secretary of the Historical Medical Equipment Society (HMES), wrote to us enquiring about our Historical Instrument collection. He was particularly interested in seeing Cruise's endoscope and its original casing which are housed in the Pathology Lab in Beaumont Hospital.
Peter & his wife came to see this particular instrument and on that day told us the story of a very interesting woman, Dr Edith Willcock McCrea, a Fellow of RCSI, whose life ended quite suddenly and tragically. We invited him to write a short synopsis of her life and achievements which he very kindly agreed to:
Edith Florence Willcock McCrea BA MB BCh BAO Dublin 1921, DPH 1922, FRCSI 1925
Edith McCrea (1896-1940). Born in Devon, the daughter of an Anglo-Irish family, she was educated at Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Dublin. She was one of the few female paediatric surgeons in Britain during the 1930s.
After gaining her DPH she was appointed as Resident Medical Officer at the Manchester Babies’ Hospital (MBH) and after gaining her Fellowship in RCSI she became research registrar.
The Manchester Baby Hospital had been founded in 1914 by Dr. Catherine Chisholm (1878-1952), the first woman to graduate with an MB ChB from Manchester University in 1904. She was a staunch medical feminist, a pioneer female children’s physician and founder-member of the Medical Women’s Federation. The Manchester Baby Hospital was a ‘women-run hospital’ and only employed female staff. During the 1930s Dr. Chisholm expanded the ‘hospital of her dreams’ to provide a complete service, including surgical facilities, with Edith McCrea as visiting honorary surgeon.
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| Dr Catherine Chisholm (image courtesy Wellcome Library) |
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| Manchester Baby Hospital (Image courtesy Manchester Central Library) |
Edith and her husband Edward McCrea (a well accomplished uroligical surgeon) lived with their two children, Gillian (9) and Patrick (12), in ‘The Cottage’, a large house set in an orchard on Barton Road in Eccles, Salford. Their house was near where Barton Road and the Bridgewater Canal crossed over the Manchester Ship Canal, about three miles from the Trafford Park Industrial Estate, busy with the production of tanks and airplanes – a regular target for the Luftwaffe. During an air-raid on 22nd December, a large parachute mine (a ‘factory flattener’) was released over Trafford Park, but blown off course, it demolished The Cottage, killing the whole family and others in the house (their cat survived). Everything was destroyed including a draft of Edith’s paper on pyloric stenosis and Edward’s collection of urological specimens. The family are buried in nearby Worsley Church. Their tragic deaths were just part of the 215 people killed in the Salford blitz in the days leading up to Christmas 1940.
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| Edith and Edward McCreas' tombstone, Worsely, Manchester. Both with the letters FRCSI |
A brief post on the Internet mentions that ‘years later’ a brass microscope lens engraved ‘Dr. McCrea’ was found in the rubble of the house and was given to the local Monk’s Hall Museum. Unfortunately, this closed years ago and there is no trace of the lens.
This brief account of a Fellow of RCSI is based on their various obituaries and some local history accounts. Why am I interested in this story? I’m a retired neurologist and medical historian from Salford Royal Hospital. I first came across Edith McCrea in the 1990s while writing my PhD thesis on the Manchester Babies’ Hospital, and I live about two miles from where their house once stood.
- Peter Mohr FRCP