Crozier, John Baptist

Crozier, John Baptist (1853–1920), Church of Ireland archbishop of Armagh, was born 8 April 1853, eldest son of Rev. Baptist Barton Crozier, rector of Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan. He entered TCD at an early age and took an active part in undergraduate life, becoming auditor of the College Theological Society and the College Historical Society, and an officer of the University Philosophical Society, and showing a gift for oratory that was to be a marked feature of his public life. He was a keen rugby player in college and an early member of Wanderers Rugby Football Club. He graduated BA 1872 (Irish being among the subjects he read), MA 1875, and in 1888 was conferred with the degrees of BD and DD (jure dignitatis). After curacies in Belfast, he was appointed vicar of Holywood, Co. Down (1880), and elected bishop of Ossory (1897), bishop of Down (1907), and archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland (1911). His primacy was marked by his strong pastoral and administrative gifts rather than academic distinction, though he was gratified to be elected to fellowship of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and was much in demand as preacher and lecturer in Britain and Ireland. He contributed to the debate on the disestablishment of the Welsh church (1921), addressing MPs at the house of commons, and ascribing to disestablishment many of the ills of the Church of Ireland. A steadfast believer that Ireland's best interests lay in union with Great Britain, he appealed for recruits to the armed services in 1914, denouncing German militarism as having ‘excelled the ferocity of naked savages’ (Journal of the General Synod, 1914). He was a conscientious member of the Irish Convention (1917–18), established in an attempt by government to solve the intractable Irish question. With Provost Mahaffy (qv) he submitted a minority report, dissenting from that of the majority on the grounds that its provisions would imply either the coercion of Ulster (‘unthinkable’) or the partitioning of Ireland (‘disastrous’). Instead, the minority report proposed a federal solution, based on the Swiss or Canadian models. Crozier died at the Palace, Armagh, 11 April 1920, some weeks after suffering a stroke, and was buried there. He married (11 September 1877) Alice Isabella, third daughter of the Rev. W. Hackett of Bray, Co. Wicklow; they had three sons and one daughter.