Cross, Richard (1730s?–1809), bookseller, printer, and publisher, son of Michael Cross, was apprenticed to David Gibson (1750) and, being a catholic, admitted to the Dublin stationers’ guild only as a quarter brother (1758). Establishing himself in Bridge St., Dublin, where he remained until his death, he became a prominent catholic printer, publisher and bookseller. Among his publications are Life of the most eminent bishop St Patrick (1763?), John O'Connor's Essay on the Rosary (1772), and new editions of Lilly's Grammar (1784) and of Alban Butler's Lives of the fathers, martyrs and saints (1796). In 1778 he advertised that he supplied country chapmen. On 2 July 1793, after the passing of the catholic relief act of that year, he was admitted a full member of his guild, but was refused ‘freedom’ by Dublin corporation. Though he was admitted a member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen (September 1792) and was described by the informer Thomas Collins (qv) as ‘a mad Jacobin’ (Woods, ‘Personnel’), he was not prominent in the society. At the Catholic Convention that met in Dublin in December 1792 he was a representative of Belfast though apparently lacking any connection with that town. During the rebellion of 1798 he made a ‘voluntary contribution’ of £100 to the treasury (op. cit.). Richard Cross died in January 1809 and was succeeded by his wife Anne (née Cusack?) (d. 1810).
Sources
Bradshaw cat. (1916), 346–7; R. B. McDowell, ‘The personnel of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen’, IHS, ii, no. 5 (Mar. 1940), 29; Thomas Wall, The sign of Doctor Hay's head (1958); Thomas Russell, Journals and memoirs, ed. C. J. Woods (1991), 125; F. Blom et al., English catholic books, 1701–1800: a bibliography (1996); M. Pollard, A dictionary of members of the Dublin book trade, 1550–1800 (2000), 137–8; C. J. Woods, ‘The personnel of the Catholic Convention’, Archivium Hibernicum, lvii (2003), 44