John Wilson Croker

John Wilson Croker (born Dec. 20, 1780, Galway, Ire.—died Aug. 10, 1857, Hampton, Middlesex, Eng.) was a British politician and writer noted for his critical severity as a reviewer and for his rigid Tory principles.

After graduating from Trinity College, Dublin, and studying law at Lincoln’s Inn, London, Croker was called to the Irish bar in 1802. He entered Parliament in 1807 and from 1810 to 1830 was secretary of the Admiralty during the long Tory predominance. From the first he had the backing of Arthur Wellesley, lst Duke of Wellingson, and the friendship continued between them until the duke’s death. Strongly opposed to the Reform Bill of 1832, Croker resigned from Parliament when it was passed (though he continued thereafter his close contacts with Tory leaders). From about this period there began the lifelong antagonism between Croker and Lord Macaulay, a major champion of the Reform Bill and Whiggism.

From 1831 to 1854 Croker was one of the chief writers for the Quarterly Review, to which he contributed about 270 articles on a variety of subjects. His literary tastes were largely those of the 18th century, as may be seen from his severe criticism of John Keats’s Endymion, Alfred Tennyson’s Poems of 1832, and of course the first two volumes of Macaulay’s History of England (1849). For some years before his death he accumulated material for an annotated edition of Alexander Pope’s works; this passed to Whitwell Elwin, who began the edition later completed by W.J. Courthope. Croker also edited the collected letters or memoirs of various 18th-century figures.