John McCrae Collection

Collection of articles, photographs, postcards and newspaper clippings concerning John McCrae and his birthplace in Guelph.  Includes a copy of "In Flanders Fields" from an original written by John McCrae in his own hand, 100th anniversary of the writing of “In Flanders Fields” newspaper supplement.

John McCrae was the author of the world famous war poem “In Flanders Fields”.  Born in 1872 in Guelph, he spent a brief period as resident master at Ontario Agricultural College in 1893 before completing degrees at the University of Toronto in Biology and Medicine.  He went on to take up appointments at McGill University and Montreal General Hospital later serving in South Africa and then overseas during the 1st World War.

John McCrae wrote his famous poem in a dugout near Ypres in 1915.  John McCrae died of pneumonia on Jan. 28, 1918 at the Boulogne Army Base and was buried the next day in the near-by cemetery at Wimereux, France.