On 4 Dec. 1768 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians, and in the following year played at the Gloucester festival. According to Fétis (Biographie des Musiciens, ii. 396), in 1772 Crosdill went to Paris, where he remained some years studying with the elder Janson and playing in an amateur orchestra directed by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. The same account states that he did not return to London until 1780, but as he played at the Three Choirs festivals regularly from 1769 until his retirement, with the sole exception of the year 1778, it is evident that Fétis's account cannot be correct. In 1776 he became principal 'cello at the Concerts of Antient Music, and on 10 March 1778 was appointed violist at the Chapel Royal, on the resignation of Nares, a post which he held until his death. About the same time he also became a member of the king's private band. In 1782 he was appointed chamber musician to Queen Charlotte; he also taught the violoncello to the Prince of Wales. In 1784 Crosdill was principal violoncellist at the Handel festival in Westminster Abbey. In July 1790 his father died at Nottingham Street, Marylebone, at the advanced age of ninety-two. About this time Crosdill married a lady of fortune, and retired from the profession, though he played at the coronation of George IV in 1821. For several years he lived in Titchfield Street, where Lord Fitzwilliam often stayed with him, and later in Grosvenor Square, with Beilby Thompson of Escrick, M.P. for Hedon, but after Thompson's death retired to his own house in Berners Street. He died at Escrick, Yorkshire, at the house of a nephew of Thompson, in October 1825. He left a considerable fortune to his only son, Lieutenant-colonel Crosdill, C.B., who, in fulfilment of his father's wishes, gave a sum of 1,000l. to the Royal Society of Musicians. There is a profile portrait of Crosdill engraved by Daniell, after Dance.
[Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 419; Gent. Mag. 1790, p. 1055; Parke's Musical Memoirs, ii. 231; Harmonicon, 1825; Annals of the Three Choirs Festivals, p. 46; Evans's Cat. of Portraits; Cheque-Book of the Chapel Royal.]
CROSFIELD, GEORGE (1785–1847), botanist, son of George and Ann Crosfield, was born in 1785 at Warrington, His parents removing from Warrington left him at the age of fourteen engaged in business there, a circumstance which gave a remarkable self-reliance to his character. He acted as secretary to the Warrington Botanical Society, and in 1810 published ‘A Calendar of Flora, composed during the year 1809 at Warrington, Lat. 53° 30′,’ in 34 pages, 8vo, with an Index generum, the nomenclature adopted being that of Sir J. E. Smith. At the age of thirty he became an elder in the Society of Friends, and in 1818 he published the ‘Letters of W. Thompson of Penketh,’ 12mo, to which a biographical notice is prefixed. This work went into several editions, and was followed by an edition of John Wilbur's ‘Letters to a Friend on the Primitive Doctrines of Christianity,’ 8vo, the preface to which is dated Liverpool, 1832; and by ‘Memoirs of S. Fothergill,’ Philadelphia, 1837, 8vo; reprinted at Liverpool in 1843, and at London in 1857. He died on 15 Dec. 1847.
[Annual Monitor, 1849.]
CROSKERY, THOMAS, D.D. (1830–1886), theologian and reviewer, son of a county Down tradesman, was born in the village of Carrowdore, nearly midway between Donaghadee and Greyabbey, on 26 May 1830. Most of his boyhood was spent in Downpatrick, whither the family removed during his childhood. His parents were poor, but gave him a good school training, and in November 1845 he was entered at the old college in Belfast, with a view to becoming a minister of the unitarian body, with which his father was connected. His religious views soon changed, and he determined to enter the ministry of the presbyterian church of Ireland. His father's poverty forcing him to support himself by his own exertions, he learned shorthand and became a reporter in connection with the Belfast press. He thus got through the six years of his college course, and on 6 May 1851 was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Down. Shortly after he went to America, where he remained for two years preaching. Returning to Belfast, he resumed his connection with the press, becoming first a reporter and subsequently editor of the ‘Banner of Ulster.’ He also officiated on Sundays, but used laughingly to tell that he preached in twenty-six vacant churches before he received a ‘call.’ At length he was invited to undertake the charge of the congregation of Creggan, co. Armagh, and on 17 July 1860 was ordained. He was translated to Clonakilty, co. Cork, and installed on 24 March 1863. In 1866 he received a call to the newly formed congregation of Waterside in the city of Londonderry, and was installed there on 20 March in that year. In all three charges he was greatly beloved and respected. In 1875 he was appointed by the general assembly to the professorship of logic and belles-lettres in Magee College, Londonderry, and in 1879, on the death of Professor Smyth, D.D., M.P., he was transferred at his own request to the
