Dr. John Beattie "Beattie" Crozier

1849 - 1921  (71 years)

• Name	John Beattie "Beattie" Crozier
  Prefix	Dr.
  Born	23 Apr 1849	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [1, 2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  FindAGrave	https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/273637551
  Residence	1861	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [3]
  	Church of Scotland
  Occupation	1871	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	Medical Student
  Residence	1871	Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [2]
  	U. Presbyterian
  Died	8 Jan 1921	London, England
  Hall of Fame - Waterloo Region	Bef 2012	, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada   [4]
  Name	Beattie Crozier
  Residence	28-30 Colborne St., Cambridge, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada
  		Crozier,JohnBeattie-0001-homeinGalt.jpg 28 Colborne St., Cambridge, Ontario Thomas Crozier, a stone mason who built a long stone cottage on Colborne Street, Galt
  Eby ID Number	Waterloo-130578
  Buried	Kensal Green (All Soul's') Cemetery, London, England
  Person ID	I130578	Generations
  Last Modified	7 Nov 2024

  
  

  Father	John Crozier,   b. 1803, , Scotland ,   d. Bef 1861  (Age < 57 years)
  Mother	Agnes Beattie,   b. 1807, , Scotland ,   d. 1 Oct 1887, Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada  (Age 80 years)
  Family ID	F32199	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Katherine Augusta Anderson,   d. Dec 1918
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2024
  Family ID	F53349	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Photos		John Beattie Crozier from Waterloo Region Hall of Fame
  		Dr. Crozier Galt Collegiate Institute Semi-Centennial and Tassie Old Boys' Re-Union 1902

  
  

• Notes

  Dr. John Beattie Crozier born in Galt 23 Apr 1849. Obtained a scholarship to Galt Collegiate Institute where he because head boy. Attended University of Toronto returned to Galt due to depression and returned 4 years later. He saw medicine as a means to an end. He saw in his own mind his life's true work to study the problems of human existence hoping to better mankind. He moved to England where he published "The Religion of the Furture", "Civilsation and Progress", and "History of Intellectual Development" In addition he wrote "My Inner Life" and "Last Words on Great Issues" he died in 1921 in England. Cambridge Mosiac, Jim Quantrell, 1998, City of Cambridge [abbreviated snippet from original text in book] ________________ "Mr. John Beattie Crozier has risen by his talents to be an M. B., L. R. C. P., practising in London, England, where two pamphlets written by him, entitled " God or Force, " and " Considerations on the Constitution of the World, " have attracted considerable attention in philosophic circles" Reminiscences of the Early History of Galt and the Settlement of Dumfries in the Province of Ontario, by James Young _____________________ John Beattie Crozier, a British philosopher, whose 1885 book Civilization and Progress reached a fourth edition and was translated into Japanese, was a native of Galt. He was one of the many natives of Waterloo County who achieved their fame in other parts of the world. His father, Thomas Crozier, a stone mason who built a long stone cottage on Colborne Street, Galt, and his mother, were natives of Liddlesdale, Scotland. Dr. Crozier attended Dr. Tassie's School. He graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1872 and practiced in London, England. In addition to Civilization and Progress he also wrote The Religion of the Future, Intellectual Development, My Inner Life (an autobiography), The Wheel of Wealth, Sociology Applied to Practical Politics and Last Words on Great Issues. He died in London, England. The Waterloo Region Hall of Fame ____________________ He is buried in Kensall Rise Cemetery (grave ref 46230) in West London, UK alongside his wife Katherine Augusta (nee Anderson) who died in December 1918. They married 18 February 1878 at St Marylebone Parish Church, West London and had three children (Gladys b.1878, Percy Beattie b.1880 and Constance b.1883). Colin Perry email 2016 _______________________ Dr. J. B. Crozier DR. JOHN BEATTIE CROZIER (born at Galt, Canada, on April 23, 1849; died in London on January 8) was a thinker who knew how to combine philosophic breadth with scientific substance. His first master in speculative thought was Herbert Spencer, but he soon began to deviate from what he took to be the materialistic outcome of Spencer's psychology. The fault he found was that Spencer, in investigating mind, failed to view it adequately except from the objective side, as correlated with the brain and nervous system. This correlation itself Crozier accepted in the most thoroughgoing way; but, as the body is an organic unity, so also, he held, must the mind be unitary; and, by introspection, he found a "scale in the mind," not unlike that of the Platonic psychology, though it was for him an independent discovery. In this scale, truth, beauty, and love are at the top; such feelings as honour, ambition, and self-respect in the middle; and such qualities as greed and, in general, animal appetite at the bottom. This led Crozier to a metaphysical doctrine (though he was inclined to repudiate the term metaphysics) according to which the higher attributes of mind are superior not only in quality, but also, correspondingly, in ultimate strength. Dr. J. B. Crozier : Abstract : Nature. (2017). Nature.com. Retrieved 28 January 2017, from https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v106/n2674/abs/106700a0.html ________________ DR. BEATTIE CROZIER. The funeral of Dr. John Beattie Crozier took place at Kensal Green Protestant Cemetery yesterday, the Rev. B. C. Andrews, chaplain at the cemetery, officiating. assisted by the Rev. R. Thornber, vicar of St. John's, Kilburn-lane. The chief mourners were Miss Gladys Crozier (daughter), Colonel W. Stratton, Mr. Miller Hallett, and Mr. G. Miller Hallett (cousins). Others present were;- Colonel Sir Francis and Lady Younghusband, Dr. John Williams, Mr. George Raindle (representing Mr. Percy Allison), Mr. J. C. Matthew, and Mr. G. P. Gooch, Mr. T. Bailey-Maunders unavoidably prevented from attending. The Times London, Greater London, England Fri, Jan 14, 1921 Page 13 ___________ DEATH OF DR BEATTIE CROZIER TRAGEDY OF A SCHOLAR By T. P. O'CONNOR MP It is with regret that we have to announce that Dr John Beattie Crozier the philosopher and political economist one of the most versatile and original thinkers of his day died suddenly from heart failure on Saturday night in his 72nd year. I first met him in Fleet-street in the early seventies and never can I forget the impression he made upon me of beautiful youth He was over six feet in height he had a perfect figure his face was singularly handsome with features of cameo-like regularity and he had large flashing expressive eyes The expression was sweet caressing frank simple with a certain air of curiosity and of reflectiveness the signs of a mind that was restless in inquiry in the search after the explanation of the riddle of the universe and that amid the roysterings of his hot youth - fairly innocent roysterings- he pursued it with an inner vision and a serious purpose. He was a young Canadian born in the town of Galt and he had been brought up in the sternest school of the Scottish Presbyterian creed to which his family belonged His childhood and early youth were mainly left to his mother In his book "The Story of My Inner Life" he draws a faithful and almost merciless picture of this stern parent - the embodiment at once of Scotland and Presbyterianism He was severely punished for trifling offences he lived in an atmosphere of religious gloom and of hard fare he used to say to me that stern as was the picture he had drawn of his mother it was not as stern as he might have made it and of course the irony and the tragedy was that this parent loved her child with intense affection but an affection that scrutinized itself and tried to save itself from the weaknesses that natural affection might suggest to an ascetic and gloomy creed. He was always a good student and he had taken his doctor's degree at an early age There was no man I ever knew who had a greater gift of taking up a subject and mastering it in all its details His versatility and the profundity of his knowledge were quite extraordinary After he had assimilated all the general knowledge of his profession he would suddenly get the idea that he ought to specialize on some branch of it He would take up the study of skin disease and not leave it till he had read and mastered everything about it Then ho would go on to the eye then to the ear so that there was no branch of the medical profession on which he was not qualified to be a specialist. Such a man with the will to conquer and the avid desire for the prizes of life - a great reputation and a vast income - ought to have ended in Harley-street and in an immense practice. To the end of his days he was simply a remote suburban practitioner with at one time a large and remunerative practice among working-men at another epoch with a practice that was both small and unremunerative. He never sank to abject poverty but his income was always modest and towards the close of his life though eked out by a pension or two was just enough to give him bread and cheese. A HAPPY MARRIAGE Yet he began by a stroke of unexpected luck. Of the many subjects he had mastered was the treatment of the heart in disease He attracted the attention of a wealthy gentleman who was stricken with that most embarrassing of maladies and he was employed at a handsome income to be the physician and travelling companion of his patron with a provision in that gentleman's will that he should get a legacy of £1000 when death brought the association to an end. After some years the patron died and Crozier found himself a young doctor with a thousand pounds to his credit The first use he made of the money was to get married - one of the happiest events in his life. Never did man have a more devoted friend a more assiduous collaborator than Dr Crozier had in his wife Katherine a niece of the late Colonel William Anderson He came in the end to sacrifice himself and partly to sacrifice his wife in the pursuit of a great ideal but she made the sacrifice willingly and knowingly her nature was of that divine unselfishness that refused nothing - -not even eyesight and life - to those she loved Crozier then settled down in St. Peter's Park a somewhat remote suburb of London gradually growing as suburbs do from thinness to density of population and for a considerable time with the growth of artisans' dwellings he had a large practice among workpeople and was deeply loved as well as trusted by his patients But the club doctor came in and that took away a considerable part of his income Meantime however he had engaged on an enterprise that interfered considerably with his professional life and absorbed him so much as to leave him almost indifferent to every other consideration. After immense reading he came to the conclusion that he had found that object of every philosopher from Plato and Aristotle to Herbert Spencer and Auguste Comte - an explanation of the riddle of the universe drawn from the study of man in all ages and in all countries. Reading incessantly collecting incessantly he built up his theory of the methods by which successive layers of religion civilization and morals had been created by the movement of man from lower to higher things. He created in short a new scheme and school of psychology and sociology and he poured forth volume after volume in illustration of his conception of human history. The books wore called by various names : " The Religion of the Future" "History of Intellectual Development" "Civilisation and Progress" - -this last book had the unique honour of being translated into Japanese. Under these different names there was the exposition of the same theory as to man s development . A MASTER OF STYLE I am not capable of pronouncing judgment on his theories it suffices to say that they commanded the assent of thousands of readers and students in all parts of the world. All I know of these books is that they display a reading as wide as some of those German specialists who seem to swallow whole libraries for their authorities . But to me the most remarkable thing in these books was their style I don't know any philosophic writer who had a better style The sentences were written in a language that was sober and vet glowed and thrilled sometimes indeed his periods reminded you of the stately flow of some of the pages of Edmund Burke. There was no sense of effort in the writing it glowed but it glowed with a sober and unflickering light its lucidity was not destroyed by its sonorous magnificence. Sometimes again it reminded one of Herbert Spencer who was a much greater man of letters than he ever got credit for In Crozier as in Herbert Spencer there was a splendid sense of building up an edifice of proof slowly deliberately irrefutably but Herbert Spencer in the well-ordered battalions - if the words be permissible - of his pages lacked the glowing spirit that Crozier was able to give to his words. The books had the advantage of being issued bv so eminent a firm of publishers as Longmans and they commanded a select but not very large circle of readers. The labour of years never brought him as much as would supply bread and cheese to his household and he had still to give much of his time to his profession in order to maintain his family. Thus his work was always under the disadvantage of being constantly interrupted there was that division of labour which uncontrovertible as a general economic law is often disastrous to the best work of professional men. Elected a member of the Athenaeum on account of his distinguished contributions to literature Crozier used to do a great deal of his work at the well-stored library of that institution. He carried his notes around with him everywhere sometimes sitting in a restaurant before a cup of tea he would draw them out and study and correct them. He brought in his wife as collaborator from the start. She had to spend hours almost every day in taking or in copying his notes. The incessant labour in the end proved fatal to both husband and wife. To her first came the warning of approaching blindness from overwork and she was almost if not completely sightless for the last period of her life. His eyes were also attacked from overwork and for some years he had to be read to. And then came the worst calamity of all the faithful sweet, devoted friend and companion died and the unhappy husband lost what most endeared life to him. He had his children; one of them a fine boy for whom I was able to get a generous gift from the late Lord Strathcona, and who had joined the Indian Army was killed early in the war,but Crozier had two daughters still to save his old age from complete loneliness. He had been given a small pension from the Civil List for his services to literature, and I believe he also had some allowance from one of the funds of his profession. His health was frail for some years before his death, and if his friends wanted to see him they had to go to him he could not go to them. It was sad to look on this ruin of a splendid physique to one who had seen him a tall alert athletic and handsome young man and who had seen him when he thrilled every visitor to the skating rink of London by his daring and elegance as a skater; he had learned the art in his native Canada and in the days of childhood when ice in winter was as certain as sunshine in summer. Outside his works on philosophy and sociology he did not write much. He once wrote a study of Lord Randolph Churchill at a time when that portentous meteor was flashing very high and very promising in the political sky. It was a severe analysis for to the philosophic mind of Crozier such a nature was not akin, and his success he regarded as leading to a useful study with some criticism of the theories and portents of democratic communities. He also wrote at the time of the controversy about tariff reform some articles and then a book called " The Wheel of Wealth" On his 70th birthday Dr Crozier received a testimonial signed by some well-known names as follows To Dr John Beattie Crozier. We the undersigned beg to offer our heartiest congratulations on the occasion of your 70th birthday. We also desire to express our appreciation of your eminent services to British scholarship and speculation and of your unselfish endeavours for human welfare . (Signed by) Morley of Blackburn Bryce William Leonard Courtney, William Osier, J. St Loe Strachey, G. P. Gooch, James P. Muirhead, T. P. O'Connor, H. W. Massingham, J. A. Hobson, Arthur Sherwell, T. Bailey Saunders, Frederic Harrison, Francis Younghusband, J. L. Garvin, John Clifford, James Crichton Browne. April 23 1919". The Daily Telegraph London, Greater London, England, Tue, Jan 11, 1921 Page 7

  
  

• Sources

  [S313] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1851, Div 1 Pg 17. [S570] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1871, Div. 1, Pg. 64. [S1838] Census - ON, Waterloo, Galt - 1861, Galt 1861 Div. 1 Page 3. [S220] Waterloo Region Hall of Fame Waterloo Region Hall of Fame.

  
  

• Event Map

  Born - 23 Apr 1849 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - Church of Scotland - 1861 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Occupation - Medical Student - 1871 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Residence - U. Presbyterian - 1871 - Galt (Cambridge), Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Died - 8 Jan 1921 - London, England Hall of Fame - Waterloo Region - Bef 2012 - , Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada Buried - - Kensal Green (All Soul's') Cemetery, London, England  = Link to Google Earth