Second son of Samuel Croft, he was born at Beamsley, a hamlet in the chapelry of Bolton Abbey, Skipton, West Riding of Yorkshire, and baptised on 27 March 1747. Although his father was in humble circumstances, Croft was educated at the grammar school of Bolton Abbey, under the Review Thomas Carr.
He graduated Bachelor of Arts on 16 February 1768, proceeding Master of Arts
Carr taught Croft without fee, and solicited subscriptions from well-to-do friends and neighbours in order to send him to university. Admitted a servitor of University College, Oxford, on 23 October 1762, he was chosen bible clerk on the following 6 December, and in 1768, the first year of its institution, he gained the chancellor"s prize for an English essay upon the subject of Artes prosunt reipublicæ. on 2 June 1769. Meanwhile he had been appointed master of Beverley Grammar School on 6 December 1768.
And, having been ordained, was elected fellow of University on 16 July 1779.
On 11 December 1779 he was instituted by his college to the vicarage of Arncliffe in the West Riding, and on 19 and 21 January 1780 took the two degrees (Bachelor's Degree and Doctor of Divinity) in divinity. About this time he became chaplain to the Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin.
He left Beverley at Michaelmas 1780, on being named head-master of Brewood Grammar School, Staffordshire, a post he resigned in 1791 to accept the lectureship of Saint Martin"s, Birmingham, to which was later added the chaplaincy of Saint Bartholomew in the same parish. He took a particularly strong polemical line in preaching against local Dissenters, who from 1780 included Joseph Priestley.
In 1786 Croft was invited to give the Bampton lectures.
He died at Birmingham on 11 May 1809, aged 62, and was buried in the north aisle of Saint Martin"s Church, where there is a monument to his memory.
