CROKER, JOHN WILSON (1780-1857). An English writer and politician. Ile was horn at Galway, Ireland. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he entered Lincoln's Inn as a student in 1800. and two years later was called to the Irish bar. ID 1804 he published Familiar Epistles, a clever satire in verse on the Irish stage. and An Intercepted Letter from !'union, a satire in prose on Dublin society. Both ran through several edi tions. In 180S he issued a treatise on the State of Ireland, Past and Present—a pamphlet on Catholic emancipation—whieh brought• him to the notice of politicians, and in the same year he was elected member of Parliament for Do•npat ri•k. A worm defense in Parliament. in 1809, of the Duke of York. charged with corrupt ad ministration, helped Croker in the same year to the office of Secretary to the Admiralty, a post which he held for more than t wooly years. lie was one of the founders of the Quarterly lierielr. and contributed many violent party articles to its pages. as well as a large number of personal
and abusive reviews. one of the most famous being on Keats's Endymion. As lie was earivatured by Disraeli in Coni»gsby. In Par liament he steadily opposed the Reform Bill in all its stages, and after its enactment he refused to enter Parliament again. lie took an active part in the establishment of the Albeit:rum Club, and rendered good service to literature by his anno tated edition of Poswell's Johnson (1831), fa mous for Alneaulay's savage review of it, and be his publication of the Suffolk Papers (1423) and Lord Ilervey's Mcmoirs of the court of George II. (18-18). ills Stories from the His tory of England for Children (1817) supplied the idea of Tales of a Grandfather. Ile also continued for a time to write verse. His Battle of Talavera (1809) pleased Wellington and was praised by Scott. Consult Jennings, Diaries and Correspondence of Croker (London, 18.54).