Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/230

 section he also spoke of his improvements on the voltaic battery, and of his observations on atmospheric electricity. Crosse returned home from the meeting an electro-chemical philosopher of eminence.

In 1837, while pursuing his experiments on electro-crystallisation, Crosse for the first time observed the appearance of insect life in immediate connection with his voltaic arrangements. These insects were proved to belong to the genus Acarus, and were observed in metallic solutions supposed to be destructive to organic life. Crosse, on publishing his discovery, was, to use his own words, ‘met with so much virulence and abuse … in consequence of these experiments, that it seems as if it were a crime to have made them.’ He communicated to Dr. Noad a full and clear account of the conditions under which this insect life was developed, and he says: ‘I have never ventured an opinion on the cause of their birth, and for a very good reason: I was unable to form one.’ After the notoriety gained by this publication of an accidental result Crosse retired to Broomfield and led the life of a recluse, giving very desultory attention to his electrical experiments.

In July 1850 Crosse married his second wife, who, being fond of science, was a valuable companion to him, working in his laboratory with him, and aided him in his electrical researches.

He experimented on a ‘Mode of extracting Metals from their Ores,’ and on the purification of sea-water and other fluids by electricity. He also communicated to the Electrical Society a paper ‘On the Perforation of Non-conducting Substances by the Mechanical action of the Electric Fluid,’ and he devoted much time in endeavouring to trace the connection between the growth of vegetation and electric influence. In 1854 he read before the British Association meeting at Liverpool a paper ‘On the apparent Mechanical Action accompanying Electric Transfer.’

After a tour in England with his wife Crosse returned to Broomfield in 1855, and arranged an experiment with Daniell's sustaining battery. This was the last scientific act of his life. On the morning of 28 May he had a paralytic seizure. He bore his illness, which lasted until 6 July, with great patience, when he died in the room in which he was born.

 CROSSE, JOHN (1739–1816), vicar of Bradford, was the son of Hammond Crosse, esq., of Kensington. He was born in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in 1739, and educated in a school at Hadley, near Barnet, Hertfordshire. When he was ordained does not appear, but his first curacy was in Wiltshire, whence he removed to the Lock Chapel, London. In 1765 he went abroad, and travelled for three years through a great part of Europe. A manuscript account of his travels is extant. It would seem that he had entered at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 18 Feb. 1768 (Cat. of Oxford Graduates, ed. 1851, p. 163). Soon after his return from the continent he was presented to the very small livings of Todmorden in the parish of Rochdale, and Cross-Stone in the parish of Halifax, where he continued for six years. He then became incumbent of White Chapel, Cleckheaton. In 1776 he was incorporated B.A. at Cambridge, and took the degree of M.A. as a member of King's College in that university (Graduati Cantab. ed. 1856, p. 97). His father having bought for him the next presentation of the vicarage of Bradford Yorkshire, he was presented to it in 1784 (, Hist. of Bradford, pp. 209, 212). He was highly esteemed as an ‘evangelical’ clergyman by his parishioners during an incumbency of thirty-two years. Although in the latter part of his life he was blind, he continued to perform the offices of the church till a fortnight before his death, which took place on 17 June 1816.

By his will he made a bequest to George Buxton Browne, in trust, ‘for promoting the cause of true religion,’ and in 1832 three theological scholarships, called the Crosse scholarships, were founded in the university of Cambridge from the sum of 2,000l. thus bequeathed (Cambridge Univ. Calendar, ed. 1884, p. 349;, Annals of Cambridge, iv. 574).

A detailed account of his pastoral labours is given in ‘The Parish Priest: pourtrayed in the Life, Character, and Ministry of the Rev. John Crosse, by the Rev. William Morgan, B.D., incumbent of Christ Church, Bradford,’ London, 1841, 12mo.

He was the author of: 1. ‘A Letter to the Author of Remarks on Two of the Most Singular Characters of the Age,’ London, 1790, 8vo. This was in answer to an attack made upon him by ‘Trim,’ i.e. Edward Baldwyn [q. v.], and was printed with a reply by the latter. 2. ‘A Reply to the Objections brought against the Church of England, in a late publication entitled “An Answer to the Inquiry, Why are you a Dissenter?”’ Bradford, 1798, 12mo. 