Richard Croker was born on 24 January in the townland of Ballyva, in the parish of Ardfield, six miles south of Clonakilty in County Cork on November 24, 1843, son of Eyre Coote Croker and Frances Laura Welsted. He was taken to the United States by his parents when he was just two years old.
Richard Croker was taken to the United States by his parents when two years old and was educated in the public schools of New York City, where he eventually became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics.
In 1865 he joined Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic machine organization of the city, just before the period when the notorious W. M. Tweed became boss in 1867. From 1868, as alderman, he was prominent in the Tammany faction opposed to the Tweed Ring. Under John Kelly, who succeeded Tweed as Grand Sachem on the latter's imprisonment in 1873, Croker held the lucrative post of city coroner for six years. He was reelected alderman in 1883 and was appointed fire commissioner in the same year. In 1886, on Kelly's death, Croker became boss of Tammany. In this position he controlled the election of city officials and exploited, for Tammany's profit, the spoils system, the profit of contracts, and other forms of "honest graft. " Robert A. Van Wyck, first mayor of Greater New York, was elected in 1897 with Croker's support. Croker resigned in 1902, after the election of the reformist mayor Seth Low, and retired to England the following year. There and in Ireland, where he resided from 1907, a large fortune acquired during his boss-ship enabled him to play the role of sporting country gentleman. His horse Orby won the English and Irish Derbies in 1907. He died in Glencairn, Ireland, on April 29, 1922.
Richard became a member of Tammany Hall and active in its politics.
Richard Croker married twice. He first married in 1873 to Elizabeth Fraser. They had several children. He married, secondly, to Beulah Benson Edmondson in November 1914 when he was 71 years old.
