Robert Cromie

Robert's elder sister, Annie Howe Cromie (1849-1939), to whom he was particularly close, was the wife of John Jordan, and named her second son after him.

Through Cromie's mother, a Miss Henry of Ballyhosset (near Downpatrick), he was descended from Gilbert Howe (c.1626-c.1712), of Ballytrim (near Killyleagh), the confidential servant to James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Clanbrassil, and was thus connected by blood to many of the leading families in East Down.

He was educated at home before being sent with an older brother to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution where, according to one article, he claimed "an unbeaten record in the matter of examinations, having never once failed, by reason... of having never once entered".

[3][4][non-primary source needed] Cromie's 1895 novel The Crack of Doom was his most successful and contains the first description of an atomic explosion.

[5][6][7] In the early 1880s, Cromie contributed many articles to cycling magazines, most to The Wheel World, describing bicycle tours around Ulster.