Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/14

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out. Her next rôle was that of Lucia in Donizetti's opera on 21 July, when the audience were charmed with her exertions, and recalled her many times. At the conclusion of the season she proceeded to Dublin, then to Birmingham, and afterwards to Italy. At Turin in 1858 she achieved a brilliant success, and added the part of Zerlina in ‘Don Giovanni’ to her répertoire. On coming back to England she commenced an engagement under E. T. Smith at Drury Lane on 25 April 1859, and appeared during the season as Amina, Lucia, and Zerlina. Her singing, however, was not so effective as before, her physical powers were limited, as they had not improved by her practice in Italy and elsewhere, and her vocalisation was heard to less advantage in Drury Lane than it had been in the smaller area of the Lyceum. She played the rôle of Arline in her father's opera of ‘La Zingara’ (‘The Bohemian Girl’) for his benefit in July 1859. On 31 March 1860, while fulfilling an engagement in St. Petersburg, she was married to Sir John Fiennes Twisleton Crampton, bart. [q. v.], the British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the court of Russia, but this marriage was annulled on her petition on 20 Nov. 1863 (Times, 21 Nov. 1863, p. 11, col. 2). She married secondly in 1864 the Duc de Frias. She died at Madrid 22 Jan. 1871, and was buried in Burgos Cathedral. She left three children.

[Drawing-room Portrait Gallery (3rd ser., 1860), with portrait; Illustrated News of the World, 28 May 1859, pp. 323, 328, with portrait; Illustrated London News, 25 July 1857, p. 90, and 1 Aug., p. 115, with portrait; Kenney's Memoir of M. W. Balfe (1875), pp. 249, 259–62.]

G. C. B.


CRANCH, JOHN (1751–1821), painter, born at Kingsbridge, Devonshire, 12 Oct. 1751, taught himself as a boy drawing, writing, and music, and while a clerk at Axminster also received instruction from a catholic priest. Inheriting some money, he came to London and painted portraits and historical pictures. He failed, however, to get a place on the walls of the Academy, but was more successful at the Society of Artists, to which he contributed ‘Burning of the Albion Mills,’ and at the British Institution, to which he contributed eight pictures in 1808. His best picture was ‘The Death of Chatterton,’ now in the possession of Sir James Winter Lake, bart., who also owns a portrait of Cranch, which was engraved by John Thomas Smith. He is said to have excelled in ‘poker-pictures,’ and to have been befriended by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds in his youth had received valuable assistance from a Mr. and Mrs. Cranch of Plympton, Devonshire, who were doubtless relatives of John Cranch. After residing many years at Bath, Cranch died there in his seventieth year in February 1821. He published two works—‘On the Economy of Testaments’ (1794), and ‘Inducements to promote the Fine Arts of Great Britain by exciting Native Genius to independent Effort and original Design’ (1811). There is a picture by him in the South Kensington Museum.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1880; Gent. Mag. (1821), xci. 189; Catalogues of the British Institution, &c.]

L. C.


CRANE, EDWARD (1721–1749), presbyterian minister, eldest son of Roger Crane (d. 1760), of an old Lancashire family, attached to the parliamentary party and the presbyterian interest, was born at Preston in 1721, and was educated for the ministry in the academy of Caleb Rotheram, D.D., at Kendal (entered in 1738). He appears to have preached for a short time at Ormskirk on leaving the academy. In the summer of 1744 he did duty at Norwich in the absence of John Taylor, the Hebraist, and in March 1745 he was appointed assistant and intended successor to Peter Finch, Taylor's superannuated colleague. His stipend was 60l., but he was able to board for 18l. a year (including wine). In 1747 his congregation, anxious to see him married, raised his stipend to 80l. In 1748 the Dutch congregation at Norwich, worshipping in the choir of the Dominican church of St. John the Baptist, was without a pastor. Overtures were made to Crane, who agreed to undertake the office, in addition to his other duties. On 11 Aug. 1748 he sailed from Yarmouth to Rotterdam, and applied in due course for admission to the Amsterdam classis, with which the Dutch ministers of Norwich had usually been connected. His certificates of ordination and call were satisfactory, but as he scrupled at subscribing the Heidelberg catechism, his admission was refused. This shut him out from the privileges of a fund which would have secured an annuity to his widow. Crane learned Dutch, and began to preach in that language in March 1749. His promising career was suddenly cut short by a malignant fever. He died on 18 Aug. 1749, aged 28, and was buried in the Dutch church. He married (4 Aug. 1747) Mary Park of Ormskirk, and left a daughter Mary (born 1748). A posthumous son, Edward, born 1749, became an upholsterer at Bury St. Edmund's. Two