tions of Frost Fairs on the Thames.’ The greater part of these maps, plans, and views were arranged and uniformly mounted on tinted paper by Crace himself during his leisure hours. The maps, some of which are very rare or unique, form a continuous series, illustrating the growth of London from 1560 to 1859. Many of the plans are of important properties, such as the Grey Friars, the Grosvenor estates, the Bank, &c.; it is said that the production by Crace in the court of chancery, in 1858, of the plan of the Pest-house, Craven Hill estate, decided the question of the ownership of the property. The views of London are very numerous, and often incidentally illustrate bygone manners and customs. They include examples by Vischer, 1620; W. Hollar, 1647; Kip, 1748; and Buck, 1749. Many of the drawn views have artistic as well as antiquarian interest; among them are works by W. Capon, P. Sandby, T. Sandby, R. B. Schnebbelie, Major Yates, J. Findlay, J. Buckler, and G. Shepherd. Crace's ambition was to have an illustration of every noteworthy London building; and under his auspices T. H. Shepherd made several hundred water-colour drawings for the collection. A selection of 1,743 specimens from the Crace collection was exhibited to the public in the king's library of the British Museum in 1880 and following years. A very large number of the illustrations in Thornbury and Walford's ‘Old and New London’ (see note, vi. p. ii) are derived from the collection, the whole of which was, at one time, placed at the disposal of Messrs. Cassell, the publishers, by the collector's son. Mr. Crace, whose ‘kind and genial disposition gained him a large circle of friends,’ died at Hammersmith on 18 Sept. 1859, in his eighty-first year. He had continued, in spite of failing health, to work at his much-loved collection till the last. He married in 1804 Augusta, daughter of Mr. John Gregory of Chelsea, treasurer of the Whig Club.
[J. G. Crace's Catalogue of the Crace Collection; Guide to the Exhibition Galleries, Brit. Mus. 1884, pp. 30–5; Brit. Mus. Parliamentary Return, 1881, pp. 7, 45; Gent. Mag. vii. 3rd ser. 435.]
CRACHERODE, CLAYTON MORDAUNT (1730–1799), book and print collector, came from an ancient family long resident in Essex, the name of Mordaunt being derived from an alliance in the sixteenth century with the Mordaunts of Turvey in Bedfordshire. His father, Colonel Mordaunt Cracherode, had command of the marines in Anson's voyage round the world; his mother was Mary, daughter of Thomas Morice, paymaster of the British forces in Portugal, and sister of William Morice, high bailiff ofWestminster, who married Atterbury's eldest daughter. Clayton Cracherode was born at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, on 23 June 1730, and admitted at Westminster School in 1742, whence he was elected second to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1746. He was in the head election at Westminster when Cumberland was at the school, who asserts that Cracherode, though 'grave, studious, and reserved as he was through life,' was also 'correct in morals, elegant in manners . . . pleasant to those who knew him.' While he lived he was a regular attendant at all Westminster meetings, and the second edition of Welch's 'Alumni Westmonasterienses' was much indebted to his manuscript notes in his copy of the first issue at the British Museum. He took the degree of B A. on 4 May 1750, and that of M.A. on 5 April 1763, retaining his studentship at Christ Church until his death. His sole writings were some specimens of Latin verse in the 'Carmina Quadragesimalia,' composed by the students of his house, and printed in 1748 ; and a set of Latin verses in the collection of the university of Oxford on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales, in 1751. Cracherode took orders in the English church, and for some time held the curacy of Binsey, near Oxford, but he neither sought nor obtained any further preferment. On the death of his father in 1773 he inherited an ample fortune, which was estimated on his own death at 800l. a year from landed property and 2,300l. a year in long annuities. The days of this shy recluse passed away among the treasures in his own house or in adding to his stores from his favourite bookshops. He was never on horseback, and never travelled further from London than to the university. So slight was his curiosity that he never saw, except in a drawing, a celebrated chesnut tree on his own estate in Hertfordshire. His manor of Great Wymondley was held from the crown subject to the service of presenting to the king the first cup from which he drinks at his coronation, and the dread of the timid book-lover lest he should at any time be called upon to undertake this service embittered his whole life. Cracherode was both F.R.S. and F.S.A., and in 1784 he was elected a trustee of the British Museum. From the sale of Askew's books in 1775 he was the chief book-buyer of his age. It was his daily habit to walk to Elmaly's, a bookseller in the Strand, and then to the more noted shop of Tom Payne, by the Mewsgate. Though he often declaimed against the high prices which ruled in his
