John Crosdill

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John Crosdill

by William Daniell, after George Dance
pencil, circa 1802-1814
10 in. x 7 3/4 in. (255 mm x 197 mm)
Purchased, 1940
Primary Collection
NPG 3089(4)

Sitterback to top

Artistsback to top

  • George Dance (1741-1825), Architect and portrait draughtsman. Artist or producer associated with 322 portraits, Sitter in 7 portraits.
  • William Daniell (1769-1837), Landscape painter and engraver. Artist or producer associated with 288 portraits.

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Events of 1802back to top

Current affairs

After returning from Naples, Nelson tours England with the diplomat and antiquarian Sir William Hamilton and his wife Emma, with whom he was having an affair. With Nelson's status confirmed as a national hero, their reception outrivals that of the King.
Extensive strikes in government shipyards led by John Gast.

Art and science

Francis Jeffrey, MP and arbiter of literary taste, co-founds the Edinburgh Review, the influential Whig quarterly which voiced strong criticism of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey.
The Exchange, where stocks were traded, is rebuilt to cope with an increase in business during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

International

Peace of Amiens; Britain finally agrees to unpopular peace, leaving France the chief power in Europe and returning recent British colonial acquisitions.
Napoleon is declared First Consul of the French Empire for life.
English flock to see the international war plunder now on display at the Louvre in Paris.

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Cheryl Nicol

16 December 2019, 22:50

At St Marylebone on 31 May 1785 Crosdill married widow Elizabeth Colebrooke, youngest of four daughters of John Thresher and his wife Ellen Long. At the time of their marriage it was widely reported she was a wealthy septuagenarian, while her new husband was only thirty. This misinformation has been repeated by the likes of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and other publications. Crosdill was indeed 30, but Elizabeth was 48 (verified by her baptism record, born 6 years after her parents' marriage). She died (still wealthy) in 1807 aged 70 and left nothing to her husband. The ODNB also states that he likely remarried after Elizabeth's death because he had a son, also named John. He didn't remarry. John junior was born out of wedlock and his father in his will calls him his "son or reputed son".