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Life
1777-1858, b. Dublin; irish surgeon and anatomist; childhood friend of Wolfe Tone while a cousin on his mother’s side was Grand Master of the Orange Order; joined army as a surgeon and grad. Glasgow, 1800; attached to the Meath Hospital, Dublin, for nearly sixty years; consultant at the Lock Hospital; large practice based on his house on Dawson St.; discoverer of musculus cramptonius in birds used to view objects at long and short distances; elected FRS (Ireland); founded the Institute for Sick Children with Sir Henry Marsh, Charles Johnson and others, 1821;
appt. chief surgeon of armed forces; also consulted at Dr. Steeven"s Hospital and Dublin Lying-In Hospital; four-times president of Royal College of Surgeons; created the wheelchair for Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, afflicted with vestigial limbs; created baronet, 14 March 1839; shared in foundation of Dublin Zoo (RoyalZoolological Society); member of RIA; died in his home at 14 Merrion Sq., Dublin; m. Selina Cannon and succeeded by his son John (last baronet); Crampton memorial designed by John Kirk, 1862ç
Crampton’s lasting interest is his monument formerly on Rutland St. (Pearse St.), which illustrates part of Stephen’s argument in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ("Is the bust of Sir Philip Crampton lyrical, epical or dramatic?"; in form it is a bare-chested bust framed by metal leaves of indeterminate botanical character - variously considered a pineapple, an artichoke and even a cauliflower - with drinking fountains in the base; also referred to in Ulysses; the statue at the junction of Brunswick St., College St., and D"Olier St. was removed in 1959, having gradually fallen to pieces; and was been replaced by the Long Stone [replica of the Viking Steyne] in 1986; there is a mezzotint engrav. after a port by William Stevenson, reclining in a chair (1842) of unknown provenance, and the same appears to be ascribed to A. Miller (Dublin), in the National Gallery of Ireland portrait collection; also dated 1842 and marked by an identifying autograph presum. of Crampton. ODNB DIB
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| Photo in Wellcome Collection |