SIR RICHARD CRUISE

Sir Richard Cruise, G.C.V.O., F.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., who died on Tuesday, was surgeon oculist to King George V and to Queen Mary.

Richard Robert Cruise was born in India, son of the late Mr. Francis Cruise, and educated at Harrow. He underwent his medical training and worked 'at his speciality at St. Mary's Hospital, the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, the Royal Westminster Eye Hospital, the Royal Eye Hospital at Southwark, and in Paris. Appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the Edward VII Hospital for officers, he wrote in 1914 a masterly treatise on clinical refraction. While serving in the RA.M.C. he invented in 1917 a chain visor for attachment to the rim of the steel helmet. It was three inches deep, and could be drawn hke a veil across the eyes. The visor was adopted in 1918, and, in the words of a correspondent of the time, " it prevented.a very high proportion of blindness."

He was a keen hunting man, and had ridden in many point-to-point steeplechases. At the Hertfordshire Hunt Point-to-Point at Friars Wash in 1927 he had won one race and was leading the field in the following race when he was badly thrown and was picked up in a semiconscious condition. He was owner of the famous steeplechaser War Gratuity, so named because he purchased'it with his war service gratuity. It won many steeplechases before dying while he was riding it in a steeplechase near Banbury in 1931. He was made a C.V.O. in 1917, a K.C.V.O. in 1922, and a G.C.V.O. in 1936.

He was twice married, first in 1913 to Margery, only daughter of the late Captain H. Woolcombe-Boyce, and secondly in 1929 to Eileen, daughter of the late Mr. Matthew Greenlees and Mrs. Selby Lowndes, and had one son and two daughters.