Captain Edward Smyth CRISPIN MRCS, LRCP, CBE, Order of the Nile (3rd Class), Or
Egyptian Army Medical Corps

Date of birth: 18th December 1874
Date of death: 12th March 1958

Died aged 83
Buried at sea
Edward Smyth Crispin was born at 6 Melbury Terrace, Marylebone on the 18th of December 1874 the third son of Alfred Trevor Crispin, Principal Clerk to the Treasury, and Sarah Jane "Pussy" (nee Johnstone) Crispin of 2 Melbury Terrace, Marylebone in Middlesex. He was christened on the 22nd of January 1875.

He was educated at Hazelwood School and at Bradfield College from May 1889 to December 1892. He went on to King's College London from the 16th of December 1893 where he studied medicine and became MRCS, LRCP in 1898. He became a House Surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in the same year and was appointed as a House Surgeon at King's College Hospital in 1899.

Following the outbreak of the South African War he volunteered as a civil surgeon and was attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers and later to a Surgical Hospital at the Modder River. He spent several months as a prisoner of the Boers. He was awarded the Queen's Medal with three clasps.

He returned to England for a short leave before accepting a position in the Sudan and he arrived at Khartoum in February 1901 where he was granted the rank of Bimbashi in the Egyptian Army and served as Principle Medical Officer. He served on the punitive expedition to Bahr-el-Ghazal in 1902 and was awarded the Khedive's Medal and Clasp. Later in 1902 he served in Southern Sudan where he was sent to tackle the many health problems in that area. He was appointed as a Medical Inspector for the Sudan Government in 1904, when he was based at Port Sudan and served as Senior Medical Inspector from 1907 to 1908. In 1909 he returned to Khartoum where he was appointed as Assistant Director of the Medical Department for the Red Sea Province and was awarded the Order of Osmanieh (4th Class), which was announced in the London Gazette of the 28th of June 1909.

In 1912 he published the book "The Prevention and Treatment of Disease in the Tropics."

He was married at All Saints Church, Witley in Surrey on the 7th of October 1912 to Edith Whitaker (nee Wright) of Witley. Sadly, she died at Port Sudan on the 22nd of February 1913.

He served as Medical Director to the Sudan Government from 1915 to 1922.

On the 1st of July 1915 he embarked for service on board the Hospital Ship "Grantully Castle", serving with her during the Gallipoli campaign and also saw service with the lines of communication during the Darfur expedition later that year for which he was awarded the campaign medal and clasp. He was awarded the Order of the Nile (3rd Class) in 1916 and was also mentioned in Sir Reginald Wingate's despatches of the 8th of August 1916 for his services to the Headquarters during the Darfur campaign.

In 1917 he was appointed as a member of the commission of inquiry into public health in Egypt. He later served as President of the Central Sanitary Board in the Sudan and was a member of the Governor General's Council from 1919 to 1922, when he retired, and was created a Commander of the British Empire (Civil Division) for "services rendered in Egypt and the Soudan" on the 24th of August 1920. On his retirement from the Sudan he returned to England where he lived for a time in London before moving to Beaulieu in Hampshire. During the Second World War he returned to London where he lived at 52 Pont Street, Chelsea and served as an ARP warden.

He was married once again to Evelyn V. (nee Cadogan) at Midhurst in Sussex in 1924 and again, to Joy (nee Gilmore) at Chelsea in 1938. In 1948 they moved to Hyde End Dean Court Road, Rottingdean in Sussex.

He died at sea on board the liner "Warwick Castle".
Went on to Bradfield College

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