Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/118

 594 et seq.) The trial apparently proved abortive, and the elder Croft was not involved in the charges. On 18 Dec. 1589 Sir James was at liberty again, and died 4 Sept. 1590, being buried in the chapel of St. John the Evangelist in Westminster Abbey. Camden's too favourable verdict on his career runs: ‘He got above the envy of the court, which, however, had wellnigh crushed him, and died in a good age, his prince's favourite and in fair esteem with all that knew him.’ Thomas Churchyard [q. v.] wrote a sympathetic epitaph in his ‘Feast full of sad cheere,’ 1592. De Larrey in his ‘Histoire d'Angleterre’ (ii. 1361) and Lloyd in his ‘Worthies’ (i. 455) give flattering accounts of him. Augustine Vincent, the herald, wrote against his name in a family pedigree in the Bodleian (MS. Ashmol.) ‘obiit pauperrimus miles.’

Croft's first wife was Alice, daughter and coheiress of Richard Warnecombe of Ivington, Herefordshire, widow of William Wigmore of Shobdon (buried at Croft 4 Aug. 1573), by whom he had three sons, Edward, John, and James, and three daughters, Eleanor, Margaret, and Jane. Croft's second wife was Katherine, daughter of Edward Blount, by whom he apparently had no issue.

The eldest son,, to whose curious trial reference is made above, represented Leominster in parliament in 1571, 1584, and 1586, dying on 29 July 1601. By his wife Ann, daughter of Thomas Browne of Hillborough, Norfolk, he was the father of Sir Herbert Croft [q. v.], of two other sons, Richard and William, and of five daughters. James Croft, the elder Sir James Croft's third son, was knighted 23 July 1603, was gentleman-pensioner to Elizabeth, and was alive in 1626.



CROFT, JOHN (1732–1820), antiquary, was the fifth son of Stephen Croft of Stillington in Yorkshire, who died in 1733, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edmund Anderson, bart. He was born on 28 or 29 Feb. 1732, and, like many other younger sons of old county families, was given the chance of making his fortune in business. Several members of his family before him had been in the wine trade, and Croft was sent when young to Oporto to follow in their steps. He became a member of the factory in that town, and after remaining there for many years returned to England and joined an old-established firm of wine merchants at York, which dealt especially in the wines of Portugal. He was admitted to the freedom of that city in 1770, and acted in 1773 as one of its sheriffs. For the greater part of his life Croft took much interest in antiquarian researches, and was a familiar figure in all the book or curiosity sales of York, with the result that he left behind him at his death an important collection of curiosities acquired, as he was a keen purchaser, at an inconsiderable cost. His eccentricities of manner and dress did not prevent his being generally popular in the city society. It is told of him that he read aloud to his wife the whole of ‘Don Quixote’ in the original Spanish, of which she did not understand a syllable, but she said that she liked to hear it, the language was so sonorous. His memory and mental powers remained unimpaired until the day of his death, which happened suddenly at his house in Aldwark, York, on 18 Nov. 1820, and he was buried in the minster on 24 Nov. The patient woman whom he married was Judith, daughter of Francis Bacon, alderman of York, lord mayor in 1764 and 1777, by his second wife, Catherine Hildrop. She was born at Selby on 26 Dec. 1746, was married 16 June 1774, died 17 June 1824, and was buried near her husband. They had issue two sons, who died before their father. The name of Croft is still identified with the wines of Portugal.

Croft's earliest work might be considered a trade advertisement of his business. It was ‘A Treatise on the Wines of Portugal; also a Dissertation on the Nature and Use of Wines in general imported into Great Britain,’ and its author was described as ‘John Croft, S.A.S., member of the factory at Oporto and wine merchant, York.’ The first edition was printed in that city in 1787, and dedicated to William Constable of Burton Constable; a second edition, corrected and enlarged, was issued in the next year. In 1792 he printed at York, probably for private circulation, ‘A Small Collection of the Beauties of Shakspeare,’ a work of less value than the unpretending, but not useless, ‘Annotations on Plays of Shakespear (Johnson and Steevens's edition), York, 1810,’ which he dedicated to the Society of Antiquaries. Croft was a col-