Manufacturers of tapestry and Brussels carpets applied to Messrs. Crossley for licences to work their patents, and large sums accrued to them from royalties alone.

[1] Crossley was elected in the liberal interest as MP for Halifax, 8 July 1852; he sat for the borough until 1859, when he became the member for the West Riding of Yorkshire.

[1] His first major gift to Halifax consisted in the erection of twenty-one almshouses in 1855, with an endowment which gave six shillings a week to each person.

[1] About 1860, with his brothers John and Joseph, Crossley began the erection of an orphan home and school on Skircoat Moor.

This was completed at their sole united cost, and endowed by them with a sum of £3,000 a year; it was designed for the maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents, and had accommodation for four hundred.

[1] He married, on 11 December 1845, Martha Eliza, daughter of Henry Brinton of Kidderminster, by whom he had an only son, Savile Crossley, second baronet, MP successively for Lowestoft and for Halifax.