William Henry Crocker

William H. Crocker

William Henry Crocker I (January 13, 1861 – September 25, 1937) was a member of the wealthy Crocker family and a prominent member of the Republican Party. Over the course of his business career, he became the president of Crocker National Bank.

Early life

Crocker was born on January 19, 1861, in Sacramento, California. His father, Charles Crocker (1822-1888), one of the "Big Four" railroad magnates, was the builder of the Central Pacific Railroad.

His uncle, Edwin B. Crocker, a wealthy California lawyer and later California Supreme Court justice, and his wife, Margaret Crocker (née Norton) founded the oldest still operating museum of the Western United States in Sacramento, the Crocker Art Museum.

His nephew, Harry Crocker, was a movie star in the 1920s and, at one time, the personal assistant of Charlie Chaplin.

His cousin, Aimee Crocker, was a Bohemian mystic who garnered publicity for her extravagant parties in New York, San Francisco and Paris, for her five husbands and many lovers, for her tattoos, and for living 10 years in the Far East, not as a tourist, but as if a native.

His cousin, Henry J. Crocker, was a prominent San Franciscan businessman and one of the Committee of Fifty, who got into a well documented public feud with William, eventually leading to a court ruling against him in his claim of having been defrauded by his own cousin.

William attended Phillips Academy, Andover and Yale University, where he was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter).

William H. Crocker's Queen Anne style mansion (1888), formerly at 1150 California Street, now the site of the Choir of Grace Cathedral

Career

Crocker was president of Crocker National Bank. When much of the city of San Francisco was destroyed by the fire from the 1906 earthquake, Crocker and his bank were major forces in financing reconstruction.

Crocker also was a director of the Sperry Flour Co., the company of his wife's family owning a chain of flour mills across the US, a truly global conglomerate, with branches as far away as Hong-Kong and Norway.^,,,

Philanthropy

Charles Crocker's Second Empire-Italian Villa style mansion (1877), formerly at the N.W. corner of California & Taylor, San Francisco, now the site of Grace Cathedral.

After the 1906 earthquake and fire had left both the adjacent mansions of W.H. Crocker and his father in ruins, in 1907 he donated the Crocker family's 2.6-acre (11,000 m²) Nob Hill block for Grace Cathedral.^,

He was a member of the University of California Board of Regents for nearly thirty years and funded the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory's million-volt x-ray tube at the UC hospital and the "medical" Crocker cyclotron used for neutron therapy at Berkeley. In 1936, Crocker contributed $75,000 toward the building of a laboratory for Ernest O. Lawrence at the University of California, Berkeley, which was subsequently named "Crocker Radiation Laboratory" in his honor. This laboratory became home to the Berkeley 60" cyclotron. In the 1960s, parts of this cyclotron were moved to the University of California, Davis, where they were the basis for the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory, which inherited its name from the original.

Crocker also chaired the Panama-Pacific Exposition Committee and SE Community Chest, and was a key member of the committee that built the San Francisco Opera House and Veterans Building. Crocker was the founder of Crocker Middle School located in Hillsborough, California. The Sacramento, California, home of Crocker's uncle, Edwin B. Crocker, was converted into the Crocker Art Museum, which was the first art museum to open in the West.

Art Collection

Postcard showing the Crocker Mansion destruction after San Francisco earthquake and Great Fire in 1906

During his lifetime William H. Crocker and his wife Ethel amassed a considerable collection of works of art.^,

One of the impressionist works they had acquired in 1894 was a painting by Claude Monet from his famous Haystacks series, "Meule, soir d'hiver", from 1899-1890 (W1217a) which was lost to eternity during the Great Fire following the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, as was most of the rest of their collection.

Surviving items of Ethel's Egyptian and Byzantine textile collection were on loan to the San Francisco Museum of Art until 1953, when the collection was shipped to Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.^,

Philately

The block of four of the 1869 24c United States stamps with inverted centre owned by Crocker (shown inverted).

As his cousin, Henry J. Crocker, William H. Crocker was a noted philatelist and the owner of the unique block of four of the 1869 24c United States stamps with inverted centre formerly the property of William Thorne.

The stamp collection survived because it was on tour abroad at the time.

Personal life

Crocker was married to Ethel Sperry (1861–1934), who become treasurer of the Woman’s Belgian Relief Fund in San Francisco and State Chair for The Woman’s Section of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), while William chaired the men's committee of the Belgian Relief Fund in San Francisco, who were to send the first 'State Ship', the SS Camino, with food aid, on 5 December 1914, over to the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which remained neutral during WWI. She was also the leading patron of French Impressionist art in California at that time.

"New Place" (1910), William Henry Crocker house, 80 New Place Road, Hillsborough, California - hand-tinted slides by Frances Benjamin Johnston, digitized and added to the Library of Congress's online database.

After the 1906 earthquake destroyed their San Francisco home, William relocated the family to a new home in Hillsborough (CA) in 1910.^, The grand estate was aptly named "New Place", now part of the Burlingame Country Club clubhouse.^, The buildings were designed by Lewis P. Hobart, the lavish gardens by Bruce Potter. Some of the fragile original lantern slides on glass of the property by Frances Benjamin Johnston, an artist of the era, have survived to this day.

Children

Together, William and Ethel were the parents of four children:

• Ethel Mary Crocker (1891–1964), who married French (former) Count André de Limur in 1918, who gave William and Ethel their first grand-daughter.
• William Willard Crocker (1893–1964), who married Ruth Hobart, daughter of playboy Walter Hobart and granddaughter of the Comstock silver millionaire Walter S. Hobart, in 1923. They divorced in 1948 and he married Gertrude (née Hopkins) Parrott, former wife of William G. Parrott. After her death in 1958, he married Elizabeth (née Fullerton) Coleman, former wife of George L. Coleman, in 1960. After his death, she married Alexander Montagu, 10th Duke of Manchester.
• Helen Crocker (1897–1966), who married Henry Potter Russell, a son of Charles Howland Russell who was previously married to Ethel Borden Harriman.
• Charles Crocker (1904–1961), who married Virginia Bennett in 1926. They divorced and he married Marguerite Brokaw, a daughter of Howard Crosby Brokaw, in 1938. After his death, she married Charles Norton Adams.

William Crocker died on September 25, 1937, at his home in Hillsborough, California.

Descendants

His grandson, also named William, is a retired anthropologist who worked at the Smithsonian Institution specializing in Canela Indians of Brazil.^,

Legacy

The public middle school in Hillsborough, California, is named after him, Crocker Middle School.

Family tree

Crocker family tree

Nancy Crocker 1792–1854 Isaac Crocker 1781–1856 Mary Norton 1821–47 Edwin B. Crocker 1818–75 Margaret Rhodes 1822–1901 Mary Ann Deming 1827–89 Charles Crocker 1822–88 Clarke Crocker 1827–90 Henry S. Crocker 1832–1904 Mary Norton Crocker 1846–1923 [two marriages] Edwin Clark Crocker 1856–56 Nellie Margaret Crocker 1856–79 Aimée Isabella Crocker 1864–1941 [five marriages] Henry J. Crocker 1861–1912 Kate Eugenie Crocker 1854–74 James O.B. Gunn 1846–1923 Jennie Louise Crocker 1860–1939 Jacob Sloat Fassett 1853–1924 [multiple children] [multiple children] [multiple children] Emily Elizabeth Crocker 1853–53 Emma Hanchett 1855–1904 George Crocker 1856–1909 Harriet Valentine Crocker 1859–1935 Charles Beatty Alexander 1849–1927 Jennie Easton 1858–87 Charles Frederick Crocker 1854–97 Francis Crocker 1858–62 Ethel Sperry 1861–1934 William Henry Crocker 1861–1937 Mary Crocker 1881–1905 Francis Burton Harrison 1873–1957 Harriet Crocker Alexander 1888–1972 Winthrop W. Aldrich 1885–1974 [multiple children] Helene Irwin 1887–1966 Charles Templeton Crocker 1884–1948 Janetta Alexander 1890–1973 Arnold Whitridge 1892–1989 Harry Crocker 1893–1958 Malcolm Whitman 1877–1932 Jennie Adeline Crocker 1887–1974 Robert Henderson 1877–1940 Mary Crocker Alexander 1895–1986 Sheldon Whitehouse 1883–1965 [multiple children] [multiple children] [one child] [multiple children] [multiple children] [multiple children] Notes Sources "Crocker Family Tree". San Mateo County Historical Association.

Further reading

• Catalogue of the William H. Crocker collection of postage stamps (1938), Harmer, Rooke and Company, Ltd, London

External links

• Charles Henry Crocker letters, 1896-1900. Collection guide, California State Library, California History Room.
• The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Crocker to Crocket at politicalgraveyard.com
• Cypress Lawn image
• Sperry Mills – American Indian – California – Decorated Flour Sacks from WW I (annelienvankempen.nl)
• Hillsborough, CA History, Historic Architecture - Hillsborough Blog