John Wilson Croker
Encyclopedia
John Wilson Croker was an Irish
statesman
and author
.
He was born at Galway
, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland
. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin
, where he graduated in 1800. Immediately afterwards he entered Lincoln's Inn
, and in 1802 he was called to the Irish bar.
His interest in the French Revolution
led him to collect a large number of valuable documents on the subject, which are now in the British Museum
. 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 1807 he published a pamphlet on The State of Ireland, Past and Present, in which he advocated Catholic
emancipation.
The following year he 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 in 1808 to Sir Arthur Wellesley
, who had just been appointed to the command of the British forces in the Iberian Peninsula
, 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 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 the most able and ingenious defence of the duke that was made in the debate; and Croker was appointed to the office of secretary to the Admiralty, which he held without interruption under various administrations for more than twenty years. He proved an excellent public servant, and made many improvements which have been of permanent value in the organization of his office. Among the first acts of his official career was the exposure of George Villiers, a fellow-official who had misappropriated the public funds to the extent of £200,000.
In 1824 he helped found the Athenaeum Club
, and became the subject of the lampoon
beginning "I'm John Wilson Croker, I do as I please...".
In 1827 he became the representative of Dublin University, having previously sat successively for the boroughs of Athlone
, Yarmouth
, Bodmin
and Aldeburgh
. He was a determined opponent of the Reform Bill
, and vowed that he would never sit in a reformed parliament; he left parliament in 1832. Two years earlier he had retired from his post at the admiralty on a pension of £1500 a year. 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. Croker had been an ardent supporter of Robert Peel
, but finally broke with him when he began to advocate the repeal of the Corn Laws
.
He 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
's Endymion
. Shelley
and Byron erroneously 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
).
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
(a Whig rival/opponent of the Quarterly Review) The main grounds of criticism were echoed by Thomas Carlyle
in a less famous review in Fraser’s Magazine
Croker made no immediate reply to Macaulay's attack, but when the first two volumes of Macaulay’s History
appeared he took the opportunity of pointing out the inaccuracies in the work.
Croker was occupied for several years on an annotated edition of Alexander Pope
's works. It was left unfinished at the time of his death, but it was afterwards completed by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and Mr WJ Courthope. He died at St Albans Bank, Hampton.
Croker was generally supposed to be the original from which Benjamin Disraeli 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
(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
.
The chief works of Croker not already mentioned were:
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.).
, named by Sir William Edward Parry
.
Cape Croker on Ontario
's Bruce Peninsula
is also named after him by Henry Wolsey Bayfield
.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
statesman
Statesman
A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...
and author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
.
He was born at Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
, the only son of John Croker, the surveyor-general of customs and excise in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, where he graduated in 1800. Immediately afterwards he entered Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of 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. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
, and in 1802 he was called to the Irish bar.
His interest in the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
led him to collect a large number of valuable documents on the subject, which are now in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
. 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 1807 he published a pamphlet on The State of Ireland, Past and Present, in which he advocated Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
emancipation.
The following year he entered parliament as member for Downpatrick
Downpatrick (UK Parliament constituency)
Downpatrick was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland, returning one MP. It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801.-Boundaries:...
, obtaining the seat on petition, though he had been unsuccessful at the poll. The acumen displayed in his Irish pamphlet led Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval, KC was a British statesman and First Lord of the Treasury, making him de facto Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated...
to recommend him in 1808 to Sir Arthur Wellesley
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, who had just been appointed to the command of the British forces in the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, 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 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 the most able and ingenious defence of the duke that was made in the debate; and Croker was appointed to the office of secretary to the Admiralty, which he held without interruption under various administrations for more than twenty years. He proved an excellent public servant, and made many improvements which have been of permanent value in the organization of his office. Among the first acts of his official career was the exposure of George Villiers, a fellow-official who had misappropriated the public funds to the extent of £200,000.
In 1824 he helped found the Athenaeum Club
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
, and became the subject of the lampoon
Athenaeum Club, London
The Athenaeum Club, usually just referred to as the Athenaeum, is a notable London club with its Clubhouse located at 107 Pall Mall, London, England, at the corner of Waterloo Place....
beginning "I'm John Wilson Croker, I do as I please...".
In 1827 he became the representative of Dublin University, having previously sat successively for the boroughs of Athlone
Athlone (UK Parliament constituency)
Athlone was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which from 1801 to 1885 returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.-Boundaries:...
, Yarmouth
Yarmouth (Isle of Wight) (UK Parliament constituency)
Yarmouth was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of England then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...
, Bodmin
Bodmin (UK Parliament constituency)
Bodmin was the name of a parliamentary constituency in Cornwall from 1295 until 1983. Initially, it was a parliamentary borough, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England and later the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until the 1868 general...
and Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh (UK Parliament constituency)
Aldeburgh was a parliamentary borough represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and its predecessor bodies.The town was enfranchised in 1571 as a borough constituency...
. He was a determined opponent of the Reform Bill
Reform Act 1832
The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...
, and vowed that he would never sit in a reformed parliament; he left parliament in 1832. Two years earlier he had retired from his post at the admiralty on a pension of £1500 a year. 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. Croker had been an ardent supporter of Robert Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, but finally broke with him when he began to advocate the repeal of the Corn Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
.
He was for many years one of the leading contributors on literary and historical subjects to the Quarterly Review
Quarterly Review
The Quarterly Review was a literary and political periodical founded in March 1809 by the well known London publishing house John Murray. It ceased publication in 1967.-Early years:...
, 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
Arthur Hallam
Arthur Henry Hallam was an English poet, best known as the subject of a major work, In Memoriam A.H.H., by his best friend and fellow poet, Alfred Tennyson...
, 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
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
's Endymion
Endymion (poem)
Endymion is a poem by John Keats first published in 1818. Beginning famously with the line "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever", Endymion, like many epic poems in English , is written in rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter...
. Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
and Byron erroneously 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
William Gifford was an English critic, editor and poet, famous as a satirist and controversialist.-Life:Gifford was born in Ashburton, Devonshire to Edward Gifford and Elizabeth Cain. His father, a glazier and house painter, had run away as a youth with vagabond Bampfylde Moore Carew, and he...
).
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
Edinburgh Review
The Edinburgh Review, founded in 1802, was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It ceased publication in 1929. The magazine took its Latin motto judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur from Publilius Syrus.In 1984, the Scottish cultural magazine New Edinburgh Review,...
(a Whig rival/opponent of the Quarterly Review) The main grounds of criticism were echoed by Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
in a less famous review in Fraser’s Magazine
- 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 encyclopaedia 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 4 ½ 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; whether 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
The History of England from the Accession of James the Second
The History of England from the Accession of James the Second is the full title of the multi-volume work by Lord Macaulay more generally known as The History of England...
appeared he took the opportunity of pointing out the inaccuracies in the work.
Croker was occupied for several years on an annotated edition of Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's works. It was left unfinished at the time of his death, but it was afterwards completed by the Rev. Whitwell Elwin and Mr WJ Courthope. He died at St Albans Bank, Hampton.
Croker was generally supposed to be the original from which Benjamin Disraeli drew the character of "Rigby" in Coningsby
Coningsby (novel)
Coningsby, or The New Generation, is an English political novel by Benjamin Disraeli published in 1844.-Background:The book is set against a background of the real political events of the 1830s in England that followed the enactment of the Reform Bill of 1832...
, because he had for many years had the sole management of the estates of the Marquess of Hertford
Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford
Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford KG, GCH PC , styled Viscount Beauchamp between 1793 and 1794 and Earl of Yarmouth between 1794 and 1822, was a British Tory politician and art collector....
, the "Lord Monmouth" of the story. Hostile portrayals of Croker can also be found in the novels Florence Macarthy by Lady Morgan
Lady Morgan
Sydney, Lady Morgan , was an Irish novelist, best known as the author of The Wild Irish Girl.-Early life:...
(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
John Banim , 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 minatures and portraits, and as a drawing teacher, before dedicating himself to literature.-Early life:John Banim was born in...
.
The chief works of Croker not already mentioned were:
- Stories for Children from the History of England (1817), which provided the model for ScottWalter ScottSir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
'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 BassompierreFrançois de BassompierreFrançois de Bassompierre was a French courtier.The son of Christophe de Bassompierre , he was born at the castle of Haroué in Lorraine...
'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 BayCroker Bay
Croker Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It lies off the southern coast of Devon Island in the eastern high Arctic...
, named by Sir William Edward Parry
William Edward Parry
Sir William Edward Parry was an English rear-admiral and Arctic explorer, who in 1827 attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole...
.
Cape Croker on Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
's Bruce Peninsula
Bruce Peninsula
The Bruce Peninsula is a peninsula in Ontario, Canada that lies between Georgian Bay and the main basin of Lake Huron. The peninsula extends roughly northwestwards from the rest of Southern Ontario, pointing towards Manitoulin Island, with which it forms the widest strait joining Georgian Bay to...
is also named after him by Henry Wolsey Bayfield
Henry Wolsey Bayfield
Admiral Henry Wolsey Bayfield 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 ancient one, who at one time lived at Bayfield Hall in Norfolk...
.
Books and Articles about Croker
- C. I. Hamilton, "John Wilson Croker: Patronage and Clientage at the Admiralty, 1809-1857" Historical Journal, 43 (2000), pp. 49-77
- Robert Portsmouth, John Wilson Croker: Irish Ideas and the Invention of Modern Conservatism (Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 2010)
External links
- Royal Memoirs on the French Revolution, (1823 English translation by Croker, 302pp., of several key eyewitness accounts)