of Wales Hospital later that year. In 1948, he was appointed orthopaedic surgeon at the French Hospital. By this time Cronin had a home and his own consulting room in Wimpole Street. A fluent speaker of French, Cronin was first made an Officier of the Légion d'honneur and, in 1967, a Chevalier in recognition of his services. He also became an expert in industrial injuries and from the 1950s he was regularly an expert witness in personal injury cases. He was a founding Director of Racal Electronics Ltd from 1965 until his death in 1986. Political career In 1948, Cronin joined the Labour Party. He became vice chairman of the North St Pancras Labour Party in 1950, and was a member of London County Council, representing Fulham East, from 1952–1955. In 1955 he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Loughborough, representing the Labour Party. He was an Opposition Whip in the House of Commons from 1959 to 1962. A man believing in socialist principles, Cronin was a close friend of Hugh Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins. He rose to become the Shadow Minister of State for Aviation in 1962. On 18 November, while taking part in a scheme for Parliamentarians to visit Royal Navy ship at sea, he was one of three survivors from a Wessex helicopter belonging to HMS Hermes which crashed off St David's Head. In 1965, he was offered a peerage; Harold Wilson used George Brown as his intermediary, but Cronin declined, telling Brown that the House of Commons was the best club in the country, and he was reluctant to leave it. He went on to hold his Loughborough seat until 1979 when he was beaten by the Conservative Stephen Dorrell. Personal life and family Cronin became a member of Brooks's, a political club in St James's Street, in 1984 having been proposed as a member by Roy Jenkins. A keen sportsman who hunted when young and regularly rode Household Cavalry horses in Hyde Park, he also played polo, squash and tennis. Cronin was an enthusiastic yachtsman — a member of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, based in Hampshire, he sailed regularly and was Commodore of the House of Commons Yacht Club. His yacht, named Hardie after the founder of the Labour party, was a 17 ton Bermudian rigged sloop and won the Cowes to Cherbourg yacht race with Cronin at the helm. He married Cora