A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Cross, Thomas

by William H. Husk

CROSS, Thomas, an engraver of music in the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries. He resided in Catherine Wheel Court, on the south side of Snow Hill, near Snow Hill Conduit. At a time when printing by metal types was the almost universally adopted means for placing music before the public, he commenced the issue of a long succession of single songs engraved on copper plates by the graver, and printed on one side only of the leaf, and led the way to the general adoption of that method of printing music. Henry Hall, organist of Hereford Cathedral, mentions him in some verses prefixed to Dr. Blow's 'Amphion Anglicus,' 1700;

'While at the shops we daily dangling view
False concord by Tom Cross engraven true.'

And again in some lines prefixed to the second book of Purcell's 'Orpheus Britannicus,' 1702;

'Then honest Cross might copper cut in vain.'

It is probable that he engraved some of the earlier publications of the elder Walsh.

Thomas Cross, junior, his son, was a stamper of music, and (according to Sir John Hawkins) 'stamped the plates of Geminiani's Solos and a few other publications, but in a very homely and illegible character, of which he was so little conscious that he set his name to everything he did, even to single songs.' He probably bore in mind his father's superscription, 01'Exactly engraved by T. Cross.'

[ W. H. H. ]