John Alexander McCrae Biography Home | add famous canadian | edit person

McCrae was born in Guelph Ontario in 1872 and attended Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.He then studied medicine at U of Toronto and rose to the command of the Queen's Own Rifles.He served in the artillery during the Second Boer War and on his return was appointed  to professor of pathology at the University of Vermont.

When Britain declared war on Germany McCrae was appointed as field surgeon in the Canadian artillery and was in charge of a field hospital during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915.McCrae'.s friend and former student Lt. Alexis Helmer was killed in the battle and his burial inspired the poem, In Flanders Fields - first published in Punch magazine.

In 1918 while still serving in the field hospital McCrae caught Pneumonia and meningitis and died.