MATTERS having been thus satisfactorily arranged as to the future management of the club, and Mr. Crockford, having become free from all interference and control by the committee, had leisure for other pursuits and pastime; and he resumed, within moderate limits, the keeping of race-horses, having now more time to devote the necessary attention to them than at the former period of his racing speculations. His retirement, however, from his late active duties and constant occupation in St. James’s-street left his every busy mind at freedom to wander into other channels of venture and speculation, and doubtless operated as a leading cause to one of his most heavy and unsuccessful outlays of capital. The adventure alluded to was a mining concern in Flintshire, in which, on the most flattering representations of probable success, based on the authority of scientific report, Mr. Crockford was induced to embark, in conjunction with another party professing to have great knowledge, skill, and experience in mining affairs. The lands in which the mines were situate were reported, on like scientific authority, to be rich and abundant in mineral treasure and resource; and on such apparently indisputable report, Mr. Crockford was led from time to time to make considerable advances in the prosecution of the works. Subsequently, a partnership was entered into, aud a further large outlay of capital expended in sinking shafts, repairing old and erecting new machinery; fine specimens of ore, the production of the mines in work, were from time to time submitted to the inspection of the great capitalist and wealthy partner, who, thus influenced, continued the necessary supplies to the continuation of the work and to the ultimate realization of his golden hopes and expectations. But time moved on, and large demands on Mr. Crockford’s purse being continued, he commenced a system of argumentation within himself, that something like return, or a prospect thereof, should be forthcoming from so great an outlay; reasoning thus, he jumped at once to the pretty correct conclusion, that mining speculations were too profound a pursuit for him, that the mineral specimens exhibited to him as illustrative of the earth’s treasure, and promissory of the immense wealth to be obtained, were dross in comparison with the ready refined golden product, brilliant and fresh from the valuable and admired process of the mint, which he had so lavishly gathered from the verdant surface of his venerated hazard table in St. James’s-street. A disagreement took place between himself and partner, which led to a dissolution, under which legal separation of interests a partition took place of the mining lands and property. In this arrangement, it is reported, Mr. Crockford was equally unfortunate; for the mines allotted to him, though considered to promise favourably in future return, turned out on subsesequent working to be of little or no value; while, on the other hand, the property partitioned to his late co-adventurer proved of much more valuable consideration. The disappointment and severe mortification occasioned by this result, and by the total failure of his hopes, added to the absolute grief and distress at so great a loss of capital, acting on a mind unaccustomed to severe reverse, and on a frame somewhat debilitated by age and growing infirmity, brought on excess of nervous excitement, which terminated in death.

For some weeks preceding his decease, Mr. Crockford had been confined to his residence, and fearful apprehensions were entertained that he might not survive the aproaching period of the Epsom races, and the great and important event of ” the Derby,” on which so many thousands were depending in immediate reference to the horse Ratan, which at the time stood high in the betting market. Much anxiety was occasioned by the knowledge that, in the event of Mr. Crockford’s dissolution before the day of the race, his horse would become disqualified, and hence great confusion would arise in some betting accounts, which, from the short period intervening, it would be impracticable to regulate or amend before the eventful day. Tattersall’s yard, on days of business, exhibited a congregation of faces expressive of the most opposite feelings of hope and fear; but anxiety was apparent in all. Ever alive, however, to business, and to any and every event in future affording opportunity for a bet, the term of Mr. Crockford’s mortal existence was the universal theme of the assembled classes of betting men, and became as much a matter of business amongst the leg fraternity as the race in which his horse was engaged. Under the fear entertained of Mr. Crockford’s inopportune decease, the parties more immediately and deeply interested in that event endeavoured to effect an insurance on his life for the short term of one week, and large premiums were offered to the different insurance companies, at Lloyd’s, and to private individuals, for such guarantee. Neither public company nor private capitalist could, however, be found to accept terms on so hazardous an event. Mr. Crockford outlived the great and important day of the Derby race, but died on the day of the Oaks, the 25th of May last.

The death of Mr. Crockford, occurring as it did close on the day of settlement of the Epsom account, a time most important to the arrangements of the sporting world, occasioned much confusion in betting accounts, and threw many obstacles in the way of full and satisfactory adjustment. With a laudable anxiety to support the credit that had hitherto attached to Mr. Crockford’s name at Tattersall’s, and with a view also to prevent inconvenience to persons to whom his account was indebted, and who relied thereon for the honourable discharge of their own engagements, his widow (even in the hour of her immediate grief) took the prompt and judicious course of addressing, a letter to the stewards of the Jockey Club, and of forwarding to them therewith her late husband’s betting books and a draft for the balance of loss which appeared to be due from him amounting to about £700. On receipt of these documents, a meeting of the Turf authorities took place, and the result of this meeting was an announcement by the stewards (Lord Stradbroke and others) that all parties indebted to the late Mr. Crockford’s account ought forthwith to pay, and that, on such payment being made, all claimants on the same account would, upon like principle, be entitled to receive their respective demands.

Thus much of Mr. Crockford as a man of notoriety, for such he most unquestionably was,

“The trump of fame
Has seldom blasted forth a name,
Throughout the country or the town,
Of more invincible renown !”

As the greatest and most successful gamester of the age, his name was familiar in every European capital. The high patronage bestowed on him screened him from the pains and penalties of the law, gave him privileges and protection over minor offenders, and secured to him the full and uninterrupted practice of his lucrative, but destructive profession as the keeper of a gaming-house. Legislators nightly met at his establishment to violate the laws which in their wisdom and anxiety for the cause of public morality they had been strenuous to enact. Churchmen, who from their pulpits were loud and eloquent in their denunciation of indulgence in vicious propensities, and who laboured to impress on the minds of their congregations the fatal and destructive consequences of gaming, here hugged the vice at which they stormed, and “shook in hanging sleeves the box and dice,” hazarding together their piety and their patrimony. Magistrates, too, the grave and sapient administrators of the law, scrupled not to offend the law by the practice of that for which, with judicial solemnity, they had sentenced the minor but unprivileged culprit to imprisonment and the treadmill, but

“Authority, though it err like others,
Hath yet a kind of medicine in it
That skims the vice o’ the top;”

and as

“that in the captain’s but a choleric word which in the soldier is flat blasphemy,”

even such is the proportionate estimate of offence in magisterial wisdom between the unprivileged sinner and the elect of Pandemonium.

“A hell, or common gaming-house,” says Lord Byron, “is a place where you risk little, and are cheated a great deal. A club is a pleasant purgatory, where you lose more and are not supposed to be cheated at all;” a subtle and satirical distinction, finely conceived, and one which may have had some influence on a certain committee, from whom has recently emanated a very elaborate report on gaming, tending to show that Parliament, which De Lolme declares to be so omnipotent that it can accomodish any and every object of its will save that of mutation of the sexes, is powerless to control the vice (though in direct violation of law) when carried on within the sanctuary of a club-house; a kind of special pleading most favourable to the growth of the evil, seeing that gamesters are in ingenious and most enterprising set of individuals, and require no ghost to tell them that clubs are easily formed to the law’s evasion.

The entire property amassed by Mr. Crockford must have been immense, regard being had to the fact that, exclusively of a sum of money, amounting to nearly half a million sterling, bequeathed to his widow, he is confidently reported to have distributed amongst his children, about two years ago, a sum nearly equalling, if not exceeding that amount; a circumstance not at all improbable in a man of foresight like Mr. Crockford, and one which will fully account, as well for the bequest of the whole bulk of his remaining fortune to his widow, as for such bequest being absolute and free from all condition. In estimating the wealth acquired by Mr. Crockford through the medium and success of his French hazard bank, (for this was the never-failing source of gain,) there must be taken into account the heavy and extravagant expenditure of the establishment in St. James’s-street; his own expensive, though by no means foolishly extravagant, mode of living; the maintenance and education of a very numerous family, the advances of money from time to time made to fit them out and further their prospects in life; the expense of a racing-stud; a considerable outlay in suppressing various indictments preferred against him for his former proprietorship in King-street, and the heavy losses more recently sustained by other venture and speculation. It may be fairly calculated that the certain profits of the hazard-table must have embraced millions! and some idea may be formed of the extent of evil to others consequent on such an accumulation of capital extracted from their means.

In person Mr. Crockford was something above the middle stature, and rather crippled in his walk, owing to a paralytic affection; his expression of countenance was by no means intelligent, or indicative in the slightest degree of that quick capacity which distinguished him in the play and jetting rings; on the contrary, there was at times a simplicity of feature ordering on the idiotic, that might well have impressed those who knew him not with a very erroneous opinion of his capability. His dress was plain in the extreme, and not in the least approaching any attempt at fashionable formation or arrangement; indeed Mr. Crockford was a man not at all addicted to outward display. In this he certainly exhibited good sense and policy; for any exhibition on his part, to the extent which his means allowed, would have put royalty’s self out of countenance, and by exciting public attention and denunciation, would in all probability have given sudden check to his profitable trade. Mr. Crockford has left behind him the numerous family of fourteen children, all of whom have received the advantages of a liberal education, and have been substantially and handsomely provided for. Some are entered of learned and liberal professions, others are engaged in trade, but all employed in honourable and lucrative pursuits. One son is handsomely endowed in the church, and three others are carrying on the business of wine merchants in St. James’s-street. Of the female portion of the family, one is married to an eminent medical practitioner.

The widow of Mr. Crockford is a lady of refined manners and amiable disposition, and much and deservingly respected by those who have the pleasure of her acquaintance. To her extreme care and attention in the exercise of such qualities Mr. Crockford owed not only the enjoyment of great domestic comfort, but the correction of much of his early coarse and uneducated manner, and the removal of habits ill-suited to his after associations. Mrs. Crockford was originally governess to the former lady of her husband’s love, by whom he had four children. It is pleasing to contemplate the falling of fortune, however questionable its acquirement, into the possession of those who can justly appreciate its value, and through whom it may, by laudable application, communicate benefit to the unfortunate and less-favoured of mankind.

Having thus traced the career of Mr. Crockford, to the extreme position of wealth and a princely mansion in Carlton House Terrace, a locality commanded only by the most opulent of our aristocracy, nought more remains to announce, but that at this residence he died on the 25th of May, 1844, aged sixty-nine years, above fifty of which were devoted to what (in our opinion by a very serious misnomer) are termed sporting pursuits.

From: The Sportsman’s magazine of life in London and the country, Vol. 1. No. 8. May 10, 1845.