Donald Ineson Crowther
Authors: S. Lock
Journal: BMJ (2002)

Physician who became an outstanding creative desk editor and teacher

With his outstanding academic record Donald Crowther should have been a consultant physician, possibly at his teaching hospital. Instead, he became one of the finest desk editors of the 20th century, though only by overcoming adversities—a brother's high profile career, his position in a power struggle between the fiery editor of the BMJ and the BMA, and the development in middle life of a severe depressive illness.

Journalism ran through Donald's family. His father became editor of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, a sister married the proprietor of a Halifax newspaper, while a second brother edited Physics Abstracts. His eldest brother, Geoffrey (later Lord) Crowther, was recommended to the Economist by none other than Lord Keynes, and as its editor increased its influence enormously, raising the circulation from 10 000 to 55 000.

Donald went to Oundle, winning a demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford, and obtaining a first in natural science. At Barts he won scholarships in surgery and midwifery, but after qualifying chose medical and paediatric house jobs, and by the outbreak of war was a medical chief assistant. During the Blitz he worked in the resuscitation unit before serving “a boring time” as a medical specialist and major in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Middle East and Italy.


In 1947 Donald returned to Barts to reorganise the cancer registry. But (predictably, given its pass rate of 12%) he failed the MRCP examination and decided to change direction, joining Abstracts of World Medicine, and becoming its editor in 1949. Hugh Clegg, editor of the BMJ and creator of Abstracts, was at odds with much of the medical world, including the BMA, which had tried to sack him for creating policy. Seeking a weapon, Clegg's opponents chose the Abstracts: its circulation was static at 2500, and it was also losing money (£12 000 a year and a cumulative £250 000). 




Continual debates called for Abstracts to be closed: with a staff of four, and a heavy workload, it would never make money. Though Clegg described it as a service to medicine, few agreed, though Donald was among them. Nevertheless, he kept his head down and calm returned when Clegg retired, though Abstracts was closed during the 1970s hyperinflation.

For 10 years Donald now came into his own. Becoming an associate editor of the BMJ, he trained its subeditors, managed the correspondence columns, and edited Keynes Press books. Crucially, also, he transformed the Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons from a house magazine into a scientific journal, receiving the Arthur Keith Medal. Besides a deep knowledge of medicine Donald knew the grandees and could be frank (to hear him quietly tick off a royal college president for a silly and unpublishable letter was a lesson in logic and manners). He also practised what he preached, and the Dictionary of National Biography's comment on Geoffrey Crowther's articles could also be applied to his own: “. . . his writing was succinct, uncomplicated, sparing of polysyllables, and always brightened by wit.”

Modest and shy, Donald was not easy to know, and he never talked about himself or his work. Nevertheless, he was a civilised man with a deep sense of humour, and few came into contact with him without feeling better. In 1940 he married April, an Edinburgh nurse who had also studied art at the Central School in London. They had five children and 14 grandchildren. Latterly he had had episodes of acute left ventricular failure, which had responded to treatment; one, developing after supper on 10 January, did not.

Donald Ineson Crowther, medical editor and trainer; b Leeds 1912; q Oxford 1937; MRCS; d 10 January 2002.