R. A. Cross, 1st Viscount Cross facts for kids

Quick facts for kids The Right Honourable The Viscount Cross GCB GCSI PC FRS DL
Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
In office 29 June 1895 – 12 November 1900
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	The Lord Tweedmouth
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Salisbury
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
In office 29 June 1895 – 4 July 1895
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	The Lord Tweedmouth
Succeeded by	The Lord James of Hereford
Secretary of State for India
In office 3 August 1886 – 11 August 1892
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	The Earl of Kimberley
Succeeded by	The Earl of Kimberley
Secretary of State for the Home Department
In office 24 June 1885 – 1 February 1886
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	The Marquess of Salisbury
Preceded by	Sir William Harcourt
Succeeded by	Hugh Childers
In office 21 February 1874 – 23 April 1880
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	Benjamin Disraeli
Preceded by	Robert Lowe
Succeeded by	Sir William Harcourt
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
In office 19 August 1886 – 8 January 1914 Hereditary peerage
Preceded by	Peerage created
Succeeded by	The 2nd Viscount Cross
Member of Parliament for Newton
In office 18 December 1885 – 19 August 1886
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Thomas Legh
Member of Parliament for South West Lancashire
In office 7 December 1868 – 18 December 1885 Serving with Charles Turner and John Ireland Blackburne
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of Parliament for Preston
In office 24 April 1857 – 4 April 1862 Serving with Charles Grenfell
Preceded by	Sir George Strickland, 7th Baronet
Succeeded by	Sir Thomas Fermor-Hesketh
Personal details
Born	(1823-05-30)30 May 1823 Red Scar, Lancashire
Died	8 January 1914(1914-01-08) (aged 90)
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse	Georgiana Lyon (d. 1907)
Alma mater	University of Cambridge

Richard Assheton Cross, 1st Viscount Cross, GCB, GCSI, PC, FRS, DL (30 May 1823 – 8 January 1914), known before his elevation to the peerage as R. A. Cross, was a British Conservative politician. He was Home Secretary from 1874 to 1880, and from 1885 to 1886.

Background and education

Cross was born in Red Scar, near Preston, Lancashire, the son of William Cross (1771–1827) and his wife Ellen, daughter of Edward Chaffers. He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was the President of the Cambridge Union in 1845. He was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1849, attaching himself to the Northern Circuit.

Political career

R. A. Cross caricatured by Ape (Carlo Pellegrini) in 1874.

Cross entered Parliament as one of two representatives for Preston in 1857, a seat he held until 1862. He was out of Parliament for the next year. While out of Parliament, Cross was a partner at Parr's Bank, of which he became chairman in 1870. In 1868 he was elected for South West Lancashire, topping the poll and defeating Gladstone, and continued to represent this constituency until his elevation to the peerage in 1886.

Cross first came to prominence as Home Secretary in Disraeli's second government (1874–1880), to which post he had been appointed without first holding junior office. He remained Home Secretary in Lord Salisbury's first government (1885–1886). The latter year he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Cross, of Broughton-in-Furness in the County Palatine of Lancaster, and was moved over to the India Office (1886–1892), where he oversaw the passage of the Indian Councils Act 1892. Lord Cross was very briefly Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Salisbury's third government (1895–1902) before being elevated to the sinecure post Lord Privy Seal. In 1898 he chaired the Joint Select Committee on Electrical Energy (Generating Stations and Supply), which recommended granting compulsory purchase powers for the building of power stations. He retired in 1900.

In 1884, Cross was elected to the Board of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, and he remained a Director of that company, and of its successor the Great Central Railway (GCR), until his death. During Board meetings, he would occasionally murmur "Where is the money to come from?" In June 1909, when he was senior Director of the GCR, that railway named one of its class 8D express passenger locomotives The Rt. Hon. Viscount Cross G.C.B., G.C.S.I. in his honour.

Family

Lord Cross married Georgiana, daughter of Thomas Lyon, in 1852. His eldest son, the Hon. William Cross, represented Liverpool West Derby in Parliament. Lady Cross died in January 1907.

Lord Cross survived her by seven years and died in January 1914, aged 90. He was succeeded in the viscountcy by his grandson, Richard Assheton Cross, the only son of the Honourable William Cross.

Arms

Arms of R. A. Cross, 1st Viscount Cross

Crest A Griffin's Head erased Argent gorged with a Double Chain Or therefrom pendant a Mullet pierced Sable in the beak a Passion Nail of the last Escutcheon Gules a Cross flory Argent charged with five Passion Nails Sable a Bordure of the second Supporters On either side a Pegasus Argent holding in the mouth a Passion Nail Sable the dexter gorged with a Chain Or therefrom pendant a Cross flory Gules the sinister gorged with a Double Chain Or therefrom pendant a Mullet pierced Sable Motto Crede Cruci (Trust in the Cross)