Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cradock, John

by Beaver Henry Blacker

CRADOCK, JOHN (1708?–1778), archbishop of Dublin, born about 1708, was a native of Wolverhampton. Having received his education at St. John's, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1728, he was elected to a fellowship of his college, which he held with the rectory of Dry Drayton, Cambridgeshire. Subsequently he became rector of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, London, and chaplain to John, fourth duke of Bedford. The degree of B.D. had been conferred on him in 1740, and that of D.D. in 1749. Accompanying the Duke of Bedford to Ireland on his appointment to the office of lord-lieutenant, he was soon after promoted, in November 1757, to the bishopric of Kilmore; and having held that see for fourteen years, he was translated to the archbishopric of Dublin, by patent dated 5 March 1772. In 1777 he incurred the vituperative attacks of Dr. Patrick Duigenan, who, in his 'Lachrymae Academicae,' took occasion to censure him severely because he had, as visitor of Trinity College, Dublin, spoken rather favourably of Provost Hutchinson, against whom that publication was specially directed. Cole says of him that he was 'a portly, well-looking man, of a liberal turn of mind, and a social and generous disposition.' His publications are:

1. 'A Sermon before the University of Cambridge,' 1739.
2. 'Sermon before the House of Commons,' 1752.
3. 'Fast Sermon,' on Jeremiah vi. 8, 1758.
4. 'A Charge delivered at his Primary Visitation in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin,' 1772.

He died at his palace of St. Sepulchre's, in the city of Dublin, 10 Dec. 1778, and was buried in the southern aisle of St. Patrick's, but there is not any inscription to his memory. His only son, John Francis Cradock, changed his name to Caradoc, and was raised to the Irish peerage in 1819, with the title of Baron Howden; and his widow, Mary Cradock, died 15 Dec. 1819, aged 89, and was buried in the Abbey Church, Bath.

[Graduati Cantabrigienses; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae, ii. 26, iii. 169; D'Alton's Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin, p. 344; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]

B. H. B.