John Wilson Croker (20 December 178010 August 1857) was an Anglo-Irish
statesman
A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level.
Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to:
Newspapers United States
* ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a ...
and author.
Life
He was born in
Galway
Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...
, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland. He was educated at
Trinity College Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
, where he graduated in 1800. Immediately afterwards he entered
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincol ...
, and in 1802 he was called to the Irish
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar ( ...
.
He married Rosamond Pennell (daughter of William Pennell & Elizabeth Pennell (née Carrington)) on 22 May 1806, in Waterford, Ireland.
None of his children with Rosamond Pennell survived past 3 years old. He and Rosamond adopted Rosamond's younger sister (who was the 18th child of Rosamond's parents) and she was also (confusingly) named Rosamond Hester Elizabeth Pennell. The younger Rosamond was born in January 1810 in Waterford, Ireland (christened with the surname Pennell). Sometime between birth and 1814, she became part of the Croker family. The name she was better known by was the nickname "Nony" Croker.
Nony's portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence (commissioned by John Croker) is in the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.
His interest in the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
led him to collect a large number of valuable documents on the subject, which are now in the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. In 1804 he published anonymously ''Familiar Epistles to J. F. Jones, Esquire, on the State of the Irish Stage'', a series of caustic criticisms in verse on the management of the Dublin theatres. The book ran through five editions in one year.
Equally successful was the ''Intercepted Letter from Canton'' (1805), also anonymous, a satire on Dublin society in the guise of a report on the manners of the Chinese at Quang-tchen on the "
Li-fee". During this period a rather scathing poem attributed to Croker led to the suicide of actor
John Edwin, husband of
Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin
Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin (–1854) was an Anglo-Irish stage actress active in Ireland and England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Life
Elizabeth Rebecca Edwin was the daughter of actor William Talbot Richards (d. 1813), ...
.
In 1807 he published a pamphlet on ''The State of Ireland, Past and Present'', in which he advocated
Catholic emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...
.
He was a distant relation of
Thomas Crofton Croker
Thomas Crofton Croker (15 January 1798 – 8 August 1854) was an Irish antiquary, best known for his ''Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland'' (1825–1828), and who also showed considerable interest in Irish song and music.
...
, Irish writer and antiquarian, who served under him in the Admiralty.
Parliamentary career
The following year (1808) Croker entered parliament as member for
Downpatrick, obtaining the seat on petition, though he had been unsuccessful at the poll. The acumen displayed in his Irish pamphlet led
Spencer Perceval to recommend him to
the Duke of Wellington, who had just been appointed to the command of British forces in the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, def ...
, as his deputy in the office of chief secretary for Ireland. This connection led to a friendship which remained unbroken till Wellington's death.
The notorious case of the
Duke of York
Duke of York is a title of nobility in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of English (later British) monarchs. The equivalent title in the Scottish peerage was ...
in connexion with his abuse of military patronage furnished Croker with an opportunity for distinguishing himself. The speech which he delivered on 14 March 1809, in answer to the charges of
Colonel Wardle, was regarded as able; and Croker was appointed to the office of first
secretary to the Admiralty, which he held without interruption under various administrations for more than twenty years. Among the first acts of his official career was the exposure of
George Villiers, a fellow official who had misappropriated public funds to the extent of £280,000; Villiers was well regarded at court, and action was taken against him only after Croker threatened resignation.
It was soon noted by a First Lord that although Croker described himself as the servant of the Board, in reality, the reverse was true.
The second secretary to the Admiralty
John Barrow became a close personal friend, and Barrow' eldest son married Croker's adopted daughter (a niece of Croker's).
In 1816 he reduced the size of the Royal Navy, and over 1,000 ships were decommissioned and placed in the
Reserve Fleet (United Kingdom)
The Reserve Fleet was a Royal Navy formation of decommissioned vessels which could be brought to a state of readiness at time of war.
In the early years of the 18th century ships were "laid up in ordinary" at various British naval bases forming a ...
or "laid up in ordinary" at various British naval bases. In 1824 he helped found the
Athenaeum Club, and when the members voted £2000 for an
icehouse
Icehouse or ice house may refer to:
* Ice house (building), a building where ice is stored
* Ice shanty, a shelter for ice fishing also known as an ''Icehouse''
* Ice skating rink, a facility for ice skating.
* Ice hockey arena, an area where i ...
, instead he commissioned from sculptor
John Henning a full-scale replica in
Bath stone
Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate. Originally obtained from the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its honey colouring gives the World Heritage City of ...
of
sculptures from the Parthenon, occasioning the widely circulated squib "I'm John Wilson Croker, I do as I please. They ask for an Ice House, I give them—a Frieze".
In 1827 he became the Member of Parliament for
Dublin University
The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Du ...
, having previously sat successively for the boroughs of
Athlone
Athlone (; ) is a town on the border of County Roscommon and County Westmeath, Ireland. It is located on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree. It is the second most populous town in the Midlands Region with a population of ...
,
Yarmouth,
Bodmin
Bodmin () is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated south-west of Bodmin Moor.
The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character. It is bordered ...
and
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the county of Suffolk, England. Located to the north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the international Ald ...
. He was made a Privy Councillor in June 1828 and, having secured a pension of £1500 a year, retired from his post at the admiralty in 1830. He was a determined opponent of the
Reform Bill, and vowed that he would never sit in a reformed parliament; he left parliament when the Act was passed in 1832. Many of his political speeches were published in pamphlet form, and they show him to have been a vigorous and effective, though somewhat unscrupulous and often virulently personal, party debater. Yet he could on occasion be magnanimous to his opponents: when
Lord Althorp during a debate in the Commons, said that while he had figures which refuted Croker's argument he had mislaid them, Croker replied that he would never doubt Althorp's word. Croker had been an ardent supporter of
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Excheque ...
, but finally broke with him when he began to advocate the repeal of the
Corn Laws.
Literary career
Croker was for many years one of the leading contributors on literary and historical subjects to the ''
Quarterly Review'', with which he had been associated from its foundation. The rancorous spirit in which many of his articles were written did much to embitter party feeling. It also reacted unfavourably on Croker's reputation as a worker in the department of pure literature by bringing political animosities into literary criticism.
He had no sympathy with the younger school of poets who were in revolt against the artificial methods of the 18th century.
In April 1833 he savagely criticised ''Poems'', published the previous December by
Alfred Tennyson—an attack which, coupled with the death of his friend
Arthur Hallam, discouraged the aspiring poet from seeking to publish anything more for nine years. He was also responsible for the famous ''Quarterly'' article on
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
's ''
Endymion Endymion primarily refers to:
* Endymion (mythology), an Ancient Greek shepherd
* ''Endymion'' (poem), by John Keats
Endymion may also refer to:
Fictional characters
* Prince Endymion, a character in the ''Sailor Moon'' anime franchise
* Raul ...
''.
Shelley and
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
blamed this article for bringing about the death of the poet, 'snuffed out', in Byron's phrase, 'by an article' (they, however, attributed the article to
William Gifford
William Gifford (April 1756 – 31 December 1826) was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist.
Life
Gifford was born in Ashburton, Devon, to Edward Gifford and Elizabeth Cain. His father, a glazier and ...
).
His ''magnum opus'', an edition of ''Boswell's Life of Johnson'' (1831) was the subject of an unfavourable review by
Macaulay in the
Edinburgh Review
The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929.
''Edinburgh Review'' ...
(a
Whig rival/opponent of the Quarterly Review) The main grounds of criticism were echoed by
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, ...
in a less famous review in ''
Fraser's Magazine''
[, issue 28; quote from version in Carlyle "English and Other Critical Essays" (Dent & Sons, London, 1915) ("no 704 of Everyman's Library")]
*that Croker had added extensive notes which were to little point, being superfluous or declaring Croker's inability to grasp Johnson's point on matters where the reviewers had no difficulty. Macaulay also complained (with numerous examples) of factual errors in the notes; Carlyle of their carping attitude to Johnson's motives (Carlyle, whose father was a stonemason, and who (like Johnson) had scraped a living as a schoolmaster, before writing encyclopedia articles for bread-and-butter wages, also took great exception to one note which took for granted that when Johnson spoke of having lived on 4½
d a day he was disclosing something of which he should have been ashamed to speak)
*that Croker had not preserved the integrity of Boswell's text, but had interpolated text from four other accounts of Johnson (Hawkins, Mrs Thrale etc.), distinguished only from genuine Boswell by being inside brackets, so that "You begin a sentence under Boswell’s guidance, thinking to be carried happily through it by the same: but no; in the middle, perhaps after your semi-colon, and some consequent 'for' – starts up one of these Bracket-ligatures, and stitches you in half a page to twenty or thirty pages of a Hawkins, Tyers, Murphy, Piozzi; so that often one must make the old sad reflection, Where we are, we know; whither we are going no man knoweth"
Croker made no immediate reply to Macaulay's attack, but when the first two volumes of Macaulay's ''
History
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
'' appeared he took the opportunity of pointing out the inaccuracies in the work.
George Birkbeck Hill in his preface to his 1887 edition of Boswell endorses much of Macaulay's criticism of Croker, but adds, "I should be wanting in justice were I not to acknowledge that I owe much to the labours of Mr Croker". Hill observed that Croker was "not deeply versed in books", was "shallow in himself", did not understand Johnson's strong character, seemed inadequately acquainted with Johnson's writings, failed to grasp Boswell's flair as a biographer, and "is careless in small matters, and his blunders are numerous":
:Yet he has added considerably to our knowledge of Johnson. He knew men who had intimately known both the hero and his biographer, and he gathered much that but for his care would have been lost for ever. He was diligent and successful in his search after Johnson's letters, of so many of which Boswell with all his persevering and pushing diligence had not been able to get a sight.
[Hill, George Birkbeck]
Preface to Boswell's ''The Life of Samuel Johnson, LLD''
New York, Harper, 1887, , pp. xxiii–xxiv
Croker was occupied for several years on an annotated edition of
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
's works. It was left unfinished at the time of his death, but it was afterwards completed by
Whitwell Elwin and
William John Courthope
William John Courthope, (17 July 184210 April 1917) was an English writer and historian of poetry, whose father was rector of South Malling, Sussex.
Life
From Harrow School he went to New College, Oxford; took first-classes in classical mod ...
. He died at St Albans Bank, Hampton.
Croker was generally supposed to be the original from which
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation ...
drew the character of "Rigby" in ''
Coningsby'', because he had for many years had the sole management of the estates of
the Marquess of Hertford, the "Lord Monmouth" of the story.
Hostile portrayals of Croker can also be found in the novels ''Florence Macarthy'' by
Lady Morgan
Sydney, Lady Morgan (''née'' Owenson; 25 December 1781? – 14 April 1859), was an Irish novelist, best known for '' The Wild Irish Girl'' (1806)'','' a romantic, and some critics suggest, "proto-feminist", novel with political and patriotic o ...
(a political opponent whom Croker subjected to notoriously savage reviews in the ''Quarterly'') and ''The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century'' (1828) by
John Banim
John Banim (3 April 1798 – 30 August 1842), was an Irish novelist, short story writer, dramatist, poet and essayist, sometimes called the "Scott of Ireland." He also studied art, working as a painter of miniatures and portraits, and as a drawin ...
.
The chief works of Croker not already mentioned were:
*''Stories for Children from the History of England'' (1817), which provided the model for
Scott
Scott may refer to:
Places Canada
* Scott, Quebec, municipality in the Nouvelle-Beauce regional municipality in Quebec
* Scott, Saskatchewan, a town in the Rural Municipality of Tramping Lake No. 380
* Rural Municipality of Scott No. 98, Sask ...
's ''Tales of a Grandfather''
*''Letters on the Naval War with America''
*''A Reply to the Letters of Malachi
Malagrowther'' (1826)
*''Military Events of the French Revolution of 1830'' (1831)
*a translation of
Bassompierre's ''Embassy to England'' (1819)
He also wrote several lyrical pieces of some merit, such as the ''Songs of Trafalgar'' (1806) and ''The Battles of Talavera'' (1809). He edited the ''Suffolk Papers'' (1823), Hervey's ''Memoirs of the Court of George II'' (1817), the ''Letters of Mary Lepel,
Lady Hervey'' (1821–1822), and
Walpole's ''Letters to Lord Hertford'' (1824). His memoirs, diaries and correspondence were edited by Louis J. Jennings in 1884 under the title of ''The Croker Papers'' (3 vols.).
Legacy
Croker Bay, named by Sir
William Edward Parry
Sir William Edward Parry (19 December 1790 – 8 July 1855) was an Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for his 1819–1820 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Pas ...
.
Cape Croker on
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
's
Bruce Peninsula is also named after him by
Henry Wolsey Bayfield
Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield (21 January 1795 – 10 February 1885) was a British naval officer and surveyor.
Early life and career
Bayfield was born in Kingston-upon-Hull, to John Wolsey Bayfield and Eliza Petit. His family was an ancien ...
.
Books and articles about Croker
*
*
*
*
*
References
External links
*
*
Royal Memoirs on the French Revolution (1823 English translation by Croker, 302pp., of several key eyewitness accounts)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Croker, John Wilson
1780 births
1857 deaths
Irish Anglicans
James Boswell
People from Galway (city)
People from County Galway
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Athlone
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Down constituencies (1801–1922)
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dublin University
UK MPs 1807–1812
UK MPs 1812–1818
UK MPs 1818–1820
UK MPs 1820–1826
UK MPs 1826–1830
UK MPs 1830–1831
UK MPs 1831–1832
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Cornwall
Fellows of the Royal Society
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin