Welbore Ellis's motion declaring that the proceedings of the city magistrates were a breach of the privileges of the house was carried by 272 to 90, and after a violent discussion it was voted by 170 to 38 that Oliver should be committed to the Tower. On 27 March Crosby was attended to the house by an enormous crowd, and, upon his refusal to be treated with lenity on the score of health, was also committed to the Tower by a majority of 202 against 39. The indignation of the people could hardly be restrained, and public addresses poured in from all parts of the country thanking Crosby for his courageous conduct. During his confinement he was visited not only by his city friends but by the principal members of the opposition, while outside on Tower Hill Colonel Onslow and the speaker were burnt in effigy by crowds of Crosby's humbler admirers.
In April appeared letter xliv., written by Junius with a view to proving that the House of Commons had no right to imprison for any contempt of their authority. In the same month Crosby was twice brought up on a writ of habeas corpus, but in both cases the judges refused to interfere, and he was remanded back to the Tower (State Trials, 1813, xix. 1138–52). The session of parliament at length closed on 8 May, on which day, accompanied by Oliver, Crosby returned to the Mansion House in a triumphal procession. Rejoicings were held in many parts of the country, and at night the city was illuminated in honour of his release. The result of the contest thus ended was that no attempt has ever been made since to restrain the publication of the parliamentary debates. On the conclusion of his mayoralty Crosby was presented with the thanks of the common council and a silver cup costing 200l. At the general election of 1774 he unsuccessfully contested the city of London, and again at a bye election in January 1784, when he was defeated by Brook Watson, the ministerial candidate, by 2,097 to 1,043. In 1782 he was elected president of Bethlehem Hospital, and in 1785 governor of the Irish Society. He died after a short illness on 14 Feb. 1793, at his house in Chatham Place, Blackfriars Bridge, in his sixty-eighth year, and was buried on the 21st in Chelsfield Church, near Orpington, Kent, where a monument was erected to his memory. Crosby married three times, but left no surviving issue. His third wife was the daughter of James Maud, a wealthy London wine merchant, who purchased the manor of Chelsfield in 1758, and the widow of the Rev. John Tattersall of Gatton. She survived her second husband and died on 5 Oct. 1800.
A portrait of Crosby, by Thomas Hardy, is in the possession of the corporation of London, and another, painted by R. E. Pine in 1771 when Crosby was confined in the Tower, was engraved by F. G. Aliamet. An engraving from the latter picture by R. Cooper will be found in the third volume of Surtees. In the centre of St. George's Circus, Blackfriars Road, is still to be seen the obelisk which was erected in Crosby's honour during the year of his mayoralty.
[Memoir of Brass Crosby (1829); Orridge's Account of the Citizens of London and their Rulers (1867), pp. 97–101, 247, 248; Trevelyan's Early History of Charles James Fox, 1881, ch. viii.; Surtees's History of Durham (1823), iii. 196–95*; Allen's History of Surrey and Sussex (n. d.), i. 300; Gent. Mag. 1793, vol. lxiii. pt. i. pp. 188–9; Ann. Reg. 1771, vol. xiv. passim.]
CROSBY, Sir JOHN (d. 1475), of Crosby Place, alderman of London, was probably grandson of Sir John Crosby, doubtfully described as alderman of London, who died before 1376, leaving a son John in his minority. Both father and son successively held the manor of Hanworth, and Sir John Crosby of Crosby Place, according to his will, possessed this manor; it also appears from Newcourt (Repert. i. 629) that he presented one Richard Bishop to the rectory of Hanworth in 1471. He appears in the account of the wardens of the Grocers' Company for 1452–4 as having paid the fee of 3s. 4d. on being sworn a freeman of the company (Grocers' Company's Facsimile Records, ii. 330), and in 1463–4 he served the office of warden. At a common council held in April 1466 he was elected a member of parliament for London, and also one of the auditors of the city accounts.
On Sir Thomas Cooke's [q. v.] discharge by Edward IV from the office, Crosby was elected alderman of Broad Street ward 8 Dec. 1468, and was transferred to Bishopsgate ward next year. In 1470, on Henry VI's temporary restoration, he served the office of sheriff. His position must have been one of danger and difficulty, as he is said to have been a zealous Yorkist, and this statement is confirmed by the effigy on his monument, which wears a collar composed of roses and suns alternately disposed, the badge adopted by Edward IV after his victory at Mortimer's Cross when a parhelion was observed. The bastard Falconbridge's attack on the city took place early in the following year, and Crosby highly distinguished himself as sheriff by his bravery in repelling the invaders. (Falconbridge's attack on the city is introduced by Heywood in his play of ‘Edward IV,’ but the
