OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: January 21, 2022
Webpage updated: January 21, 2022

        

WHO WAS WHO IN OLD PLYMOUTH

RONALD CRISPIN GILL (1916-2004)

Ronald Crispin Gill was born on March 10th 1916 in Portland Place, Plymouth, to Mr Joseph Henry Gill, a joiner, and his wife, the former Miss Margaret Jane Crispin.  They had married at the King Street Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on August 6th 1910.

He was educated at Hyde Park Road School and then at the Corporation Grammar School under Mr Charles William Bracken (1868-1950), who in 1932 published a single-volume history of Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport.

Upon leaving school at the age of 18, Mr Gill became an apprentice staff reporter on both the "Western Morning News" and the "Western Evening Herald".  On August 5th 1939 Mr Ronald Crispin Gill, then a sub-editor, married Miss Mary Beatrice Grills Foot, the niece of Mr Isaac Foot, the Plymouth solicitor and father of Mr Michael Foot, at Greenbank Road Wesleyan Methodist Chapel.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he volunteered to join the Royal Navy but was rejected because he wore glasses.  So instead, he joined the Royal Army Pay Corps, from which he transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps, where he served on one of their motor launches.  In due course he was commissioned and commanded one of the Army's first Fairmile motor launches.

In 1941 Mrs Gill, who was known as "Molly", presented him with his first daughter, Jane E Gil, and followed that in 1944 with their only son, Crispin Owen Gill (1944-2001).

Mr Gill was demobbed in 1946 having reached the rank of Captain.  He re-joined the Western Morning News Company as deputy chief sub-editor and a few months later became the chief sub-editor.

In 1949 he and Beatrice were gifted with another daughter, Sarah M F Gill, and in 1950 Mr Gill became assistant editor of the "Western Morning News".

In 1971, following the death of his wife, he was drawn away from his native City to Burford in Oxfordshire, when he was offered the editorship of "The Countryman", taking that magazine to its highest ever circulation.  In 1976 he edited "The Countryman's Britain" to celebrate the magazine's half-century and followed that with "The Countryman's Britain in Pictures".

Crispin Gill contributed to the life of Plymouth not only through his journalism but also by his work for the YMCA, scouting, yachting, the Church, the Barbican Association, the Devon History Society, the Old Plymouth Society and the Dartmoor National Park Committee.  He wrote several booklets of specialised history and in 1966 produced the first volume of "Plymouth - A New History" for Messrs David and Charles Limited.  It was so detailed that it only covered the period from the Ice Age to the Elizabethans.  The second volume, published in 1979, was less detailed and crammed the remainder of Plymouth's history into one volume.

His other titles included "Sutton Harbour" and "Plymouth River".

He was awarded the OBE when he retired from journalism in 1981 and an honorary doctorate by the University of Plymouth in 1995.

Ronald Crispin Gill died on Wednesday November 24th 2004 at the age of 88 and was survived by his third wife, Mrs Ana Quintero Gill, and four grandchildren.  The funeral took place at Saint Andrew's Church on December 4th 2004.