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Life
1858-1945 [John Smyth Crone]; ed. Royal Acad. Inst., and Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB), MD; worked in London hospital before engaging in 40 years of medical practice in Willesden, Middlesex (Greater London); app. Chairman of District Council, 1900-03; Member of Middlesex Co. Council, 1906-16; Deputy Coroner, 1917; High Sherriff, 1933-34; President of Irish Literary Society (London), 1918-1925; founder-editor of Irish Book Lover, 1919-24, to be resumed by Seamus O Casaide in 1928; compiled A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928);
ed., with F. J. Bigger and a memoir by D. J. O’Donoghue, Reliques of Barney Maglone [1894]; also issued Henry Bradshaw: His Life and Works [1894] and Francis Joseph Bigger, In Remembrance (1927); his obituary appears in Irish Book Lover, 30 (Oct. 1946), with an appreciation by PS O’Hegarty and another notice by W. B L[uke] in the issue where the bequest of his library to the Belfast Public Library, all housed with the library of F. J. Bigger’, is announced (Feb. 1947); Belfast Central Library also holds an archive of 10,000 items relating to The Irish Book Lover.DIB DIH DUB OCIL
Works
John S. Crone, MRIA, A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: Talbot Press 1928), 270pp. [epigraph: ‘Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris’, Virgil - and the motto of the RDS]; ded. ‘To His Excellency James McNeill, Governor-General Irish Free State, in all friendship these pages are inscribed.’ [See Preface, infra.]
[ See ‘Our Forerunner’, in The Irish Book Lover, ed., J. S. Crone, Vol. I, No. 1 (Aug. 1909) - under John Power [q.v.] and full text - as attached. ]
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Quotations
A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928), Preface: ‘Half a century having elapsed since any work similar to this has issued from the press, no apology for its appearance is necessary - its need and usefulness are taken for granted. / As will be seen by the authorities named throughout, few sources of information have been left untapped, in the endeavour to make it the most complete and comprehensive list ever published of notable Irish men and women in every sphere of activity. / And what a list it is, greater in proportion to population than could be shown by any other country in the world - a record to be proud of, whose compilation has been a labour of love.’ (signed; 1 March 1928.)
Reference
Belfast Public Library holds the John Crone Collection, which incls. a correspondence with W. B. Yeats, along with papers of John Foster (Baro Oriel), last Speaker of the Irish House of Lords. Belfast Public Library Crone Collection (Behest) incls. his correspondence with D. J. O’Donoghue Archive (1866-1917); correspondence with John Vinnycomb, chief ill. of Marcus and Ward, and papers of Sir John Newport Chancellor of Irish Exchequer (1756-1853). Also titles by Crone: Run Round Ulster (newspaper cuttings, 1893-1903); Henry Bradshaw (1894); A Concise Dict. of Irish Biography (1928). (See Rascal online.)
Notes
The Crone Bequest at the Belfast Central Library holds an archive of 10,000 items relating to the Irish Book Lover journal and other matters including pamphlets and materials of John Foster (Baron Oriel), the last speaker in the Irish House of Lords, and the correspondence of D. J. O’Donoghue and W. B. Yeats.
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