[Album page featuring handwritten notes by Thomas Crofton Croker referring to an account of the death of Thomas Foster by Daniel Griffin, a sketch by William Behnes of Foster and a letter and envelope from Sir Edward Belcher attached]

The text describes Gerald Griffin's account of the death of Thomas Foster, as recalled by Griffin's brother Daniel.

1854

Ink on paper

Daniel Griffin (was the brother and biographer of Gerald Griffin (1803-1840)

National Gallery of Ireland

CSIA

 

was ordered off the premises and removed.
The jokes upon it ended only with its existence. Some of Sir Edward Belchers have been annexed in the margin I, II and III. The last has reference to a cut which I had made in the gate door.
To return to poor Foster - on the 10th Nov. 1824, Gerald Griffin, the Irish Novelist, wrote to his brother, that he had "dined the other day - with Banim - "at least about a month since - with him and a friend of his, an Artist of the name of Foster, (to whom if you recollect, Madame de Genlis dedicated one of her works and expresses her gratitude for his assistance in some of her literary labours). He is one of the most delightful facetious fellows I ever saw". Griffin's brother (and his biographer), then continues - (p. 182)
This Mr Foster had been acquainted with Gerald about a year and a half before this meeting, and had then procured him some introductions to parties who he thought might be useful to him. He was the same friend who by the merest accident dropped in one evening in the hour of his greatest distress " to have a talk with him" and of whom he says in a letter which I have already given (p. 139) " I had not seen him. Nor any body else that I knew, for some months, and he frightened me by saying I looked like a ghost."

Born in Cork, Thomas Crofton Croker was the only son of Major Thomas Croker of the 38th Infantry. From an early age he travelled extensively around Ireland collecting poetry, songs and legends of the Gaelic Irish. He was an accomplished writer and competent artist. Through the influence of John Wilson Croker (no relation), Crofton Croker obtained a clerkship in the Admiralty in London, where he worked until 1850. He embarked upon a literary career in earnest while honouring his administrative duties, publishing 'Researches in the South of Ireland' in 1824 and 'The Fairy Legends' and 'Traditions of the South of Ireland' the following year. Among his close associates were Daniel Maclise and Walter Scott.

In 1844, the Cork-born antiquarian Thomas Crofton Croker acquired at auction a sketchbook that had belonged to Henry Perronet Briggs, his artist friend who had died a short period earlier. At the time of purchase, the album contained just ten studies by Briggs of costume details after the Dutch artist Jacques de Gheyn (1565-1629). Crofton Croker began to fill the empty pages with details of Briggs' exhibition history. The list continues uninterrupted until 1826 at which point Crofton Croker records the death of Thomas Foster, a mutual friend of his and Briggs. Crofton Croker continues the list, with occasional annotations, up to 1844, but then turns his attention almost exclusively to Foster. The album contains from that point extended notes by Crofton Croker, many of which draw on or quote from the testimony of other friends, on Foster's suicide and its immediate consequences, along with a large quantity of artworks, letters and other other ephemera relating to Foster. The album was discovered in Oxford in 2002 and acquired by the Centre for the Study of Irish Art the following year.