John Crosby (died 1476)

A Yorkist during the Wars of the Roses, he was knighted for his service in resisting an attack on London in 1471 by Lancastrian forces under Thomas Fauconberg.

In 1465 his former master, John Young, accused Crosby of 'counterfeiting his seal and making a false indenture', and the quarrel between the two had to be submitted to arbitration.

[1][2][4] By about 1469 Crosby was importing luxury fabrics, including damasks and satin, and exporting from England on Italian vessels.

[1][2][5][4] By 1466 Crosby had amassed sufficient wealth from his trading ventures to obtain a 99-year lease of land from the prioress of St Helen's Priory in Bishopsgate, and to build Crosby Hall, a house which John Stow described as ‘of stone and timber, very large and beautiful, and the highest at that time in London’.

He died five years later, in either January or February 1476, and was buried at St Helen's, Bishopsgate, where an altar tomb was erected to him and his first wife, Agnes.

[3][14] Crosby married firstly a wife named Agnes (d.1466) whose surname is unknown, by whom, according to the inscription on his monument as recorded by Weever, he had four sons, Thomas, Richard, John, John (again), and two daughters, Margaret and Joan:[15][16][17] Orate pro animabus Johannis Crosby, militis, ald.

atque tempore vite maioris staple ville Caleis; & Agnetis vxoris sue, ac Thome, Richardi, Johannis, Johannis, Margarete & Johanne liberorum eiusdem Johannis Crosby, militis, ille obiit, 1475, & illa 1466, quorum animabus propitietur Deus.Crosby married secondly Anne Chedworth, the daughter of William Chedworth, Clerk of the Common Council of London, uncle of Margaret (née Chedworth), second wife of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk.