John Crosse

John Crosse (1739–1816) was an English cleric of evangelical views, vicar of Bradford, Yorkshire from 1784.

Early life He was the youngest of three surviving sons of Hammond Crosse (1703–1785) of Islington. His background was the Crosse family of Bedfordshire and Clerkenwell, who were involved in brewing. His father was the son of Andrew Crosse (1677–1749), who was master of the Brewers' Company in 1729; and was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1745. He married Elizabeth Crosse, a cousin, daughter of Robert Crosse, and was a brewer at Millbank.

John Crosse was born in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in 1739, and educated in a school at Hadley in Hertfordshire.

While living in London, Crosse joined a Methodist class. On the account of Joseph Sutcliffe (1762–1856), published by William Stamp, Crosse walked from Islington and heard Alexander Coates preach in east London, at age 19, and through Methodist connections met John Wesley.

1760s Crosse matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford in 1762. He was ordained deacon in 1763 by Robert Hay Drummond, with an Edinburgh M.A., and became a curate at Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He moved to the Lock Chapel, London, where he was chaplain. There he encountered William Dodd again, and came under the influence of Martin Madan.

In 1765 Crosse went abroad, and travelled for three years in Europe. He had as companion John Thornton, a cousin of John Thornton of Clapham, to whom he was acting as tutor. John Thornton of Clapham had experienced an evangelical conversion around 1754, in which Madan and Henry Venn were involved. On the way they paid a visit to Voltaire at Ferney, and went to the University of Halle. A manuscript account of Crosse's travels is extant.

In 1776 Crosse was incorporated B.A. at Cambridge, and took the degree of M.A. as a member of King's College.

Crosse was well-regarded as an evangelical clergyman by his parishioners during an incumbency of 32 years. He added galleries to the church, and sought ways to build new ones. He maintained on good terms with his Wesleyan Methodist contacts, particularly John Wesley and John William Fletcher (died 1785). His continuing relationship with the widowed Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, who lived at Madeley, Shropshire, brought into his orbit, in the last years of his life, Patrick Brontë, William Morgan and John Fennell, all of whom joined him in the Bradford parish.

In later life Crosse was blind, but he continued to perform the offices of the church till a fortnight before his death, which took place on 17 June 1816. The presentation depended on the advowson changing hands, via Henry Thornton of Clapham, to Charles Simeon.

Family Crosse married, firstly, in 1774, Grace Sutcliffe (died 1811). After her death, he married in 1812 Martha Hopkinson, and survived her.