John McCrae

John McCrae (1872–1918) was a Canadian poet best known for “In Flanders Fields,” the 15-line poem he wrote at the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915 that inspired the remembrance poppy. He was a doctor and soldier first: a pathologist trained at the University of Toronto and Johns Hopkins, an artillery officer in the Boer War, and a lieutenant-colonel in the Canadian Army Medical Corps when he died of pneumonia in France in 1918.

Our view is that McCrae’s one great poem came from the two halves of his life meeting in a single week. The doctor had spent 17 days treating the wounded of Ypres, and the soldier had just buried a friend. What he wrote speaks for the dead with a physician’s plainness and asks the living to fight on with a soldier’s sense of duty.

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Why He Matters · Timeline · Life and Career · Poetry and Style · Famous Poems and Books · Legacy · FAQ
Related Poets

Why John McCrae Matters

Few poets have written so little and changed public life so much. McCrae published only a few dozen poems, most of them conventional late-Victorian verse, but one of them became the most quoted poem of World War I. Recruiters, bond drives, and politicians used it during the war, and it is still read aloud at Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, and Memorial Day ceremonies every year.

His larger legacy is a symbol. The poppies in his opening line inspired the American teacher Moina Michael to start wearing a red poppy in 1918, and within a few years veterans’ groups across the English-speaking world had adopted it. Millions of people pin one on each November, most without knowing the name of the army doctor who gave them the image.

John McCrae Timeline

These are the key dates in McCrae’s life and work.

1872

John McCrae is born in Guelph, Ontario, on November 30, the son of David McCrae, a militia officer, and Janet Simpson Eckford.

1894

He earns his BA from the University of Toronto.

1898

He graduates in medicine from the University of Toronto.

1899

He works as a resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital and in December volunteers for the Boer War as a lieutenant in D Battery, Canadian Field Artillery.

1900

He fights in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, including the Battle of Belfast in August, and returns to Canada at the end of the year.

1901

He becomes professor of pathology at the University of Vermont, a post he holds until 1911.

1902

He is appointed resident pathologist at the Montreal General Hospital.

1905

He opens a private medical practice in Montreal.

1910

He serves as physician on Governor General Lord Grey’s canoe expedition to Hudson Bay.

1912

A Text-Book of Pathology, written with J. G. Adami, is published.

1914

At 41, he joins the Canadian Expeditionary Force as medical officer and major of the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery.

1915

He treats the wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres, buries his friend Alexis Helmer on May 2, and writes “In Flanders Fields” on May 3.

1915

In June he moves to No. 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill), and on December 8 “In Flanders Fields” appears in Punch.

1916

The hospital moves from tents at Dannes-Camiers to a former Jesuit college in Boulogne.

1917

He writes “The Anxious Dead,” a companion to his famous poem.

1918

He is named consulting physician to the British armies in France, reportedly the first Canadian so appointed, but dies of pneumonia and meningitis at Wimereux on January 28.

1918

Moina Michael begins wearing a red poppy in November, inspired by his poem.

1919

In Flanders Fields and Other Poems is published, with an essay on McCrae by Andrew Macphail.

1921

The British Legion adopts the poppy for Armistice Day.

1946

Canada designates him a Person of National Historic Significance.

1966

His birthplace in Guelph becomes McCrae House National Historic Site.

2015

A statue of McCrae by Ruth Abernethy is unveiled on Green Island in Ottawa for the poem’s centenary.

Life and Career

McCrae’s life ran on two tracks, medicine and the military, and he wrote poetry in the spaces between them.

Guelph and Toronto (1872–1899)

McCrae grew up in Guelph, Ontario, in a Presbyterian family of Scottish descent. His father commanded a militia field battery, and John joined the militia as a teenager. He graduated from Guelph Collegiate at 16 and was the first Guelph student to win a scholarship to the University of Toronto, where he earned a BA in 1894 and a medical degree in 1898. He was already publishing poems in Canadian magazines, and he suffered from asthma all his life.

The Boer War (1899–1900)

In December 1899, McCrae left a residency at Johns Hopkins to volunteer for the Second Boer War as a lieutenant of artillery. He reached Cape Town in February 1900, fought through the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, and came home at the end of the year with the Queen’s South Africa Medal. The war left him with a soldier’s loyalties that never faded.

A Doctor in Montreal (1900–1914)

Back in Canada, McCrae built a distinguished medical career. He taught pathology at the University of Vermont and at McGill, worked as a pathologist and physician at the Montreal General and Royal Victoria hospitals, and opened a private practice in 1905. In 1910 he traveled as physician on Lord Grey’s canoe expedition to Hudson Bay, and in 1912 he and J. G. Adami published A Text-Book of Pathology. He never married.

Ypres and “In Flanders Fields” (1914–1915)

When war came in 1914, McCrae enlisted at 41. “I am really rather afraid,” he wrote, “but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience.” As medical officer to the 1st Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery, he worked for 17 days of the Second Battle of Ypres in a small dugout dressing station on the bank of the Yser Canal, north of the city. On May 2, 1915, his friend and former student Lieutenant Alexis Helmer was killed by a shell, and McCrae read the burial service himself. The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance near the Essex Farm dressing station, he wrote “In Flanders Fields.”

Boulogne and the Last Years (1915–1918)

In June 1915, McCrae was transferred to No. 3 Canadian General Hospital, staffed from McGill, which ran in tents at Dannes-Camiers before moving to Boulogne in 1916. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and ran its medical division through the long middle years of the war. The poem’s fame, after its publication in Punch, amused and slightly irritated him, and he complained that people rarely printed it correctly. Worn down by overwork and asthma, he caught pneumonia in January 1918, just as he was named consulting physician to the British armies. He died at Wimereux on January 28 and was buried the next day with full military honors, his horse Bonfire following the coffin.

Poetry and Style

McCrae wrote in the traditional forms and diction of late-Victorian verse, with regular meters, strong rhymes, and a taste for solemn subjects. Death is his great theme, long before the war: poems such as “The Unconquered Dead” (1906) and “The Warrior” (1907) already speak for fallen soldiers, and several early poems give a voice to the dead. His best lines are short, plain, and concrete, the style of a man used to writing case notes.

“In Flanders Fields” shows him at his best. The tight French rondeau form, with only two rhymes and a returning refrain, holds his feeling in check and makes the poem easy to remember. The weakness of the rest of his work is that the conventions often do the feeling for him, with abstract nouns and borrowed phrasing where a sharper image was needed. Readers who come to his collected poems after the famous one usually find it stands almost alone.

Famous Poems and Books

These are the works most readers meet first.

• In Flanders Fields (1915): The rondeau written at Ypres in which the dead ask the living to carry on the fight, and the source of the remembrance poppy.
• The Anxious Dead (1917): A companion poem in which the war dead ask for news that the fight goes on, so that they can sleep.
• The Unconquered Dead (1906): A monologue spoken by soldiers who died holding their ground, an early version of his great theme.
• The Warrior (1907): A tribute to a soldier who gave everything to his duty.
• The Night Cometh (1913): A meditation on work and approaching death, its title taken from the Gospel of John.
• In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (1919): His collected poems, published after his death with a memoir by Andrew Macphail.

Reputation and Legacy

McCrae’s reputation rests almost entirely on one poem, and that poem has had a complicated life. It was hugely popular during the war and was used in recruiting drives, war bond campaigns, and Canada’s 1917 conscription election. After the war, as the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon shaped how people remembered it, some readers grew uneasy with its final call to “Take up our quarrel.” The historian Paul Fussell nonetheless called it the most popular poem of its era, and it remains central to Remembrance Day in Canada and the Commonwealth.

McCrae is remembered all over the places he knew. His birthplace in Guelph is McCrae House National Historic Site, the dressing station at Essex Farm near Ypres is Belgium’s John McCrae Memorial Site, and the In Flanders Fields Museum in the Cloth Hall at Ypres takes its name from his poem. Schools in Ontario are named for him, the Canadian Medical Association awards a John McCrae Memorial Medal, and a statue by Ruth Abernethy has stood in Ottawa since 2015.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions people most often ask about John McCrae.

Who was Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae?

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian doctor, soldier, and poet who wrote “In Flanders Fields” in 1915. He served as an artillery officer in the Boer War and as a medical officer and hospital physician in World War I, reaching the rank of lieutenant-colonel before he died in France in 1918.

Why did John McCrae write “In Flanders Fields”?

He wrote it after the death of his friend and former student Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, who was killed by a shell at Ypres on May 2, 1915. McCrae buried him that day and wrote the poem on May 3, looking at the poppies growing among the graves near his dressing station.

How did John McCrae die?

He died of pneumonia and meningitis on January 28, 1918, at a military hospital in Wimereux, France, at age 45. He was not killed in battle, and he died about 10 months before the war ended.

Where is John McCrae buried?

He is buried in the Commonwealth war graves section of Wimereux Communal Cemetery, near Boulogne in northern France. His grave lies flat on the ground, as all the graves there do, because of the sandy soil.

Was John McCrae Canadian?

Yes. He was born in Guelph, Ontario, in 1872, studied at the University of Toronto, practiced medicine in Montreal, and served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I.

Related Poets

These poets shared McCrae’s war or answered it.

• Rupert Brooke: The English poet whose patriotic war sonnets, like McCrae’s poem, come from the war’s first year.
• Laurence Binyon: Author of “For the Fallen,” the other poem at the heart of Remembrance ceremonies.
• Alan Seeger: The American volunteer who wrote “I Have a Rendezvous with Death” and was killed in 1916.
• Wilfred Owen: The war’s great realist, whose angry poems answer the call to fight that ends McCrae’s.
• Robert W. Service: McCrae’s fellow Canadian, who served as an ambulance driver and wrote popular verse about the war.

Sources

• John McCrae, Wikipedia
• In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (1919), Project Gutenberg
• Author: John Alexander McCrae, Wikisource