Born 22 March 1867 at Hillside, Dowlais, Glamorgan, the second child and eldest son of Pearson Robert Cresswell, CB and Jane Catherine Robinson, his second wife. His father (1834-1905) was a well-known surgeon in the colliery district of South Wales who, after he was appointed chief surgeon to the Dowlais Iron and Colliery Company in 1860, was instrumental in introducing Listerian methods into South Wales (obituary memoir with portrait in *Brit med J* 1905, 2, 1493). Frank Cresswell was educated at Christ's College, Brecon, and was one of the first pupils in the University College, Cardiff. Having taken the BSc at the University of London and served the post of house surgeon at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary he entered the medical school at Guy's Hospital, having determined to devote himself to ophthalmology, and went to Utrecht for a course of study in that subject. On his return to England he became a clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, and was appointed a prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He settled at Cardiff in partnership with John Tatham Thompson, the senior ophthalmic surgeon to the infirmary and was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the Aberdare and the Merthyr General Hospitals and the Hamadryad Seamen's Hospital. On the unexpected death of Henry Collen Ensor he was elected ophthalmic surgeon to the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, a post he held until 1932. He died on 6 October 1936, having married on 15 July 1914 Lilian, youngest daughter of Waring Daily Marshall Lysley, barrister-at-law, who survived him with a son. Cresswell was a good teacher and held a high position as an ophthalmic surgeon. He was lecturer on ophthalmology in the Welsh National School of Medicine, and president of the section of ophthalmology at the Cardiff meeting of the British Medical Association in 1928. Apart from his professional work, in which he made a special study of eye troubles in miners, his interest lay in freemasonry. He was a past grand deacon of England, and held high office in most of the allied degrees.