John Crosfield

John Fothergill Crosfield CBE DSc MA (22 October 1915 in Hampstead, London – 25 March 2012 in Hampstead, London) was an English inventor and entrepreneur. He was a pioneer in the application of electronics to all aspects of colour printing and the inventor of the acoustic and subsonic mines during the World War II.

Graduating with a degree in mechanical sciences from Cambridge University in 1936, Crosfield was working on electrical lifts for ASEA in Sweden when war was declared. He joined the Admiralty, where with a team of mathematicians and engineers he was charged with developing sonar, to detect midget submarines and new types of mines.

In 1947, Crosfield founded J F Crosfield Ltd. (later Crosfield Electronics Ltd.) to develop press control equipment The first product was the Autotron, that enabled magazines to print economically in colour. Following this, the company played a leading role in the introduction of colour scanning in 1958, phototypesetting and later the automated composition of pages incorporating pictures and text, a 1970s precursor to Photoshop. He founded Crosfield Business Machines Ltd. in 1966 to develop and produce banknote inspection, counting and sorting machines. The companies won 4 Queens Awards for Technology and Exports. De La Rue acquired the Crosfield businesses in 1974.

In 1971, Crosfield was appointed a CBE for Services to Industry. He was a board member of De La Rue, Baker Perkins and the Scientific Instruments Research Association until 1985. Crosfield researched and wrote The Crosfield Family, The Cadbury Family and, in 1991, Recollections of Crosfield Electronics 1947 to 1975. He installed an electron-microscope in his studio, using it to scan and image microscopic insect and plant life from his garden. He used these images as the inspiration for surreal but fascinating paintings.

Crosfield was noted for his generosity, giving away most of the fruits of his success in his lifetime. He was widely read, a good conversationalist and always interested in the exploits of his large, extended family and his many friends and their offspring. After a short illness, he died at his home at the age of 96.

Early life, family and education Self-portrait by John Crosfield 1931, aged 15. Oil on canvas. Crosfield was the third child and second son of a family of prominent Quakers. His father, Bertram Fothergill Crosfield (1882–1951), was managing director and co-proprietor of the liberal dailies The News Chronicle and The Star, president of the Mid-Bucks Liberal Association and Clerk of the Meeting at Jordans Meeting House. John Crosfield's mother, Eleanor Cadbury (1885–1959), was a daughter of the chocolate manufacturer and Quaker George Cadbury. She was well known locally as a magistrate, elected as a Liberal to Bucks County Council, and for her work in local charities and political associations. The company continued development of scanners, bringing out new models that improved the versatility, quality and productivity of earlier versions. High quality colour printing was now common in catalogues, magazines and newspapers around the world.

Personal life

Family

Beechwood by John Crosfield 1931, aged 15. Oil and palette knife on canvas Ammonium Carbonate Crystal X 10,000 by John Crosfield, 1980. Oil on canvas Crosfield married Geraldine Fitzgerald of Lockport, New York (1915-1987), where her father was a prominent surgeon, in 1938, and they had a son, Robin Braden Fitzgerald (b. 1939). After a lengthy separation caused by the war, they were divorced in 1945. In 1945, Crosfield married Edythe Miriam Bertinet (1917-2009) of Rockville Centre, New York and they had three children: Richard John (b. 1946), Eleanor Miriam (b. 1949) and James Michael (b. 1951).

Painting Crosfield's youthful oil paintings showed promise. His interest in art was awakened by Maurice "Grassy" Field, his art master at the Downs School, when he was 11. By the age of 15 (around 1930) his landscape oils show the influence of Impressionism. His father, himself an amateur painter, thought that his artistic talent and interest in engineering would best be served in architecture. Marriage, the war, starting his own business and his growing family left little time for painting, but when he returned to it seriously, his art reflected the change in artistic values. He was very interested in the development of abstract art and a frequent visitor to galleries. He had seen a scanning electron microscope in a Helsinki research institute and, in 1975, when he had the money and the time to use it, he bought one from Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company.

Crosfield was to be seen in his painter's smock at the top of Grove Lodge (his birthplace, which he had bought in 1965) preparing, scanning and photographing minute objects - insect parts, pollen, petals, crystals - that he subsequently reproduced in colour and in a much larger scale on canvas. Viewing nature magnified thousands of times "was like opening a door onto another planet."

Crosfield was a modest man. He bought most of his clothes at Marks and Spencer, he would travel only in economy, and he considered flamboyant cars a waste of money. Yet Crosfield was a generous man. After the sale to De La Rue, Crosfield set up a charitable trust with 75,000 pounds capital (closed in 2000 with its capital distributed to charities). Over the years he gave away most of his capital to family, friends and people he knew in need and to a large number of charities. These included the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and Dignity in Dying.

Crosfield detested discrimination of any kind, and Crosfield Electronics hired staff only for their ability. Crosfield was a long-standing member of Hampstead Golf Club, as was the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The Club did not admit Jews, but in the early 1960s Crosfield put up his friend and neighbour Leon Smulian, who was admitted. Crosfield said, "I put an end to that."

The Crosfield home was always open to friends who were ill or in need. Sometimes friends stayed with them for months and, in one case, for two years.

Crosfield died at home on 25th March 2012 and was buried with his wife on the eastern side of Highgate Cemetery.

Honours and awards 1971 - Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for Services to Industry. 1973 - Gold Medal of the Institute of Printing 1980 - Doctor Honoris Causa, (DSc), Cranfield Institute of Technology 2010 - Champion of Print, International Printing Exhibition (IPEX)

Crosfield Electronics received Queen's Awards for Technology in 1967, 1972 and 1973 and the Queen's Award for Export in 1973.

Publications The Crosfield Family: A history of the descendants of Thomas Crosfield of Kirkby Lonsdale who died in 1614 (Cambridge, England 1980, Revised Edition 1990) A History of The Cadbury Family (Cambridge, England 1985) 2 Vols Recollections of Crosfield Electronics 1947 to 1975 (Peterborough, England 1991)