| Administrative History | Professor Ernest William Henderson Cruickshank (1888 - 1964) was educated in Aberdeen at Robert Gordon's College and the University of Aberdeen. He graduated M.B. Ch.B. in 1910. He was a Research Fellow with the Physiology Department of the University of London when war broke out in 1914, and immediately applied to join the Royal Army Medical Corps, He was initially rejected on medical grounds (he had lost one eye in an accident previously) but soon persuaded the authorities that this was not a problem. From February 1915 to January 1916 he served in military hospitals in England, briefly at Colchester and then at Warley. In February 1916 he was posted to the Ambulance Trains in France, and served there until July 1917 when he joined the 28th Field Ambulance on the front line in France and Flanders. From November 1917 to March 1918 he was Medical Officer in charge with the 11th Battalion of the Royal West Kent Regiment on the Italian Front, and from April 1918 to the Armistice he was Medical Officer of the 41st Battalion Machine Gun Corps. At the beginning of 1919 he was posted to Nuremberg as Officer Commanding the British Prisoners of War Repatriation Commission's group for the 3rd Bavarian Army Corps area.
After his discharge, Cruickshank spent a year as Associate Professor of Physiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, and subsequently held appointments as Professor of Physiology at other universities including Peking Union Medical College (1920 - 1924), Prince of Wales Medical College Patna (1926), and Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia (1929). In 1935 Cruickshank returned to Aberdeen to the Regius Chair of Physiology at the University of Aberdeen, where he remained until his retirement in 1958.
Following his return to Aberdeen in 1935 Cruickshank worked closely with Sir John Boyd Orr (Later Lord Boyd Orr), who was head of the Rowett Research Institute, and this further developed his interest in nutrition. He published important works on physiology and nutrition, including "Practical Biochemistry for Students" 1928, "Food and Physical Fitness" 1938, and "Food and Nutrition" 1946. Cruickshank was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1929. In addition to his undergraduate degrees from Aberdeen University, he held a DSc from London University (1919) and a PhD from Cambridge University (1926), as well as honorary degrees of MD (1920) and LLD (1959) from Aberdeen University.
Ernest Cruickshank's twin brother Martin Melvin Cruickshank (1888 - 1964) was also a graduate of Aberdeen University (BSc MB ChB) and served in the RAMC during the First World War, though in different locations from his brother. In 1919 Martin Cruickshank joined the Indian Medical Service; he returned to Aberdeen in 1946 to become the Deputy Superintendent of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, where he remained until his retirement in 1958.
Likenesses:
Photographs of Ernest Cruickshank:
Photograph of Ernest Cruickshank (centre, face on to camera) and companions in the ruins of Arras, September 1916 (MS 4027/3)
Photograph of Ernest Cruickshank (standing, left) with two other officers (MS 4027/8)
Photograph of Ernest Cruickshank (2nd from left) with his medical team (MS 4027/8)
Photograph of Ernest Cruickshank ("M.O.") and other officers of Headquarters Co., 18th Battn. K.R.R.C. (MS 4027/8)
Studio postcard photograph of Ernest Cruickshank, Berlin 1919 (MS 4027/8)
Photograph of Ernest Cruickshank in uniform. Aberdeen, August 1919 (MS 4027/8)
Photographs of Martin Cruickshank:
Three photographs of Martin Cruickshank in Egypt, c, February 1919 (MS 4027/7)
Small photograph of Martin Cruickshank on horse (MS 4027/8)
Studio photograph of Martin Cruickshank and two other officers of the 37th Brigade R.F.A., Egypt (MS 4027/8) |
| Description | The collection consists of eight volumes of Ernest Cruickshank's First World Ward diary and associated papers.
The war diaries, marked 'Log II' to 'Log IX', describe Cruickshank's service in the RAMC, initially as Lieutenant then as Captain, from 11 May 1916 to 25 July 1919. The first four volumes (MS 4027/1-4) cover his experience on Ambulance Trains, while MS 4027/5-7 give an account of his service at the front in France, Flanders, and Italy. The final volume, MS 4027/8, describes his experience of the Armistice and his subsequent posting as O.C of the Nuremberg party of the Commission for the Repatriation of British Prisoners of War. The missing volume at the start of the sequence, 'Log I', which is mentioned at the start of MS 4027/1, presumably covered his initial service on Ambulance Trains from February 1916 to May 1916, and possibly also his work in military hospitals in England before that.
The diaries reflect Cruickshank's lively interest in everything that was going on around him. As well as giving an account of his day-to-day activities, he includes reflections on war news and descriptions of various aspects of then-modern warfare: the heavy artillery and the experience of being under bombardment, attacks by aircraft and anti-aircraft defences, the organisation of the ambulance trains and the aid posts at the front. He writes about his medical work and gives details of the recovery and treatment of wounded soldiers, he describes his experiences of the battles of the Somme and the to-and-fro fighting at Ypres, and he records the destruction he sees at Arras and other places in France and Flanders. He records conversations with friends and others on the progress of the war, on troop movements, on the build-up to the Armistice. And after November 1918 he recounts discussions with a Belgian priest and German officers on the whole experience of the war.
Cruickshank has also used the diaries as scrapbooks, and they contain a variety of pasted-in material and loose inserts that further illustrate his experience of the war. These fall into various categories: press cuttings, photographs, letters, official communications, and general ephemera.
The collection also includes some separate papers, in particular Cruickshank's report on his work in Germany for the Commission for the Repatriation of British Prisoners of War (MS 4027/11) and an account by his brother Martin Cruickshank, who was in Germany when war was declared in 1914, describing his arrest as an enemy alien, his experience of the civil internment camp at Ruhleben near Berlin, and his release under an amnesty for doctors and clergymen (MS 4027/12), |