Domestic Intelligence. The Revd. Mr. Cronin, C.C., The Banner of Belfast, Port Fairy, 25 August 1857, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article282195308:

We regret to learn that this Rev. gentleman is about to be removed from Belfast, but to what part of the colony we have not heard. The Rev. Mr. Cronin, has, during his short stay in Belfast, applied himself diligently to the supervision of the Catholic schools, which are very efficiently conducted, and as a consequence very numerously attended. If for no other reason than the disorganization of the schools, which not unusually follows the the frequent change of clergymen, we regret the departure of the Rev. Mr. Cronin, but we trust the education of his flock will not be lost sight of by his successor. One of the evil consequences of the angry controversy on national and denominational education, is, the erroneous impression that religion and education are hostile to each other; and no idea can be more erroneous. If education loses its value when unaccompanied by religion; religion loses its grandeur when unaccompanied by education. An accomplished scholar himself, the Rev. Mr. Cronin seems to have been actuated by this view, and we must say his exertions have been successful to a remarkable degree. It requires no very profound acquaintance with the history of Ireland, to know the causes which have operated for centuries past against the education of the bulk of the people, and the traces of the misgovernment of many generations, cannot be entirely effaced in one generation. But all countries and all creeds are equal in our Colonial society—all must be prepared to take the part which citizenship imposes; but without education no community can uphold its status. Therefore do we hope that these schools shall not be permitted to fall into the chaos which formerly obtained for them an unhappy celebrity. The Rev. Mr. Cronin will be succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Birch, who has already arrived, and who has been for some years a missionary in the East Indies.

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Address from the Children of the Roman Catholic Schools, Belfast, to the Rev. J.B. Cronin, C.C., The Age, Melbourne, 3 September 1857, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154830668.

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Reply, The Age, Melbourne, 3 September 1857, p 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154830666:

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The Age, Melbourne, 19 May 1858, p 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article154856743:

We understand that there will an office and High Mass in St. Francis's, at nine o'clock, tomorrow, for the late Rev. John Cronin, Dean of St. Patrick's College. The deceased, who was distinguished for great talent and extensive as well as varied information, was lately appointed Dean of St. Patrick's College. A disease of the chest, from which he suffered since his arrival in the colony in 1854, attacked him again on Thursday last, since which he has declined rapidly, and expired at five o'clock last evening, at the early age of thirty-six years.

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Melbourne News, Bendigo Advertiser, 20 May 1858, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87980515:

We regret to have to announce the death of the Rev. John Cronin, O.S.F., which took place at five o'clock last evening in St. Patrick's College, Eastern Hill. The Rev. gentleman arrived in Victoria in the latter end of the year 1854, and had officiated for some time in the western districts. Recently he performed the duties of Dean of the Roman Catholic College, and was much esteemed by his co religionists.

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Melbourne News, Bendigo Advertiser, 22 May 1858, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article87980572:

The funeral of the late Rev. Mr. Cronin, Dean of the Roman Catholic College of St. Patrick, took place yesterday afternoon. His remains were on the previous evening removed from the college to St. Francis' Church, whence they were escorted by a large concourse of persons to the new Cemetery.

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Intercolonial News, The Courier, Hobart, 24 May 1858, p 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2462535:

The Rev. John Cronin, O.S.F., died on the 12th in St. Patrick's College, Eastern Hill. The rev. gentleman arrived in Victoria in the latter end of the year 1854, and had officiated for some time in the western districts. Recently he performed the duties of dean of the Roman Catholic College, and was much esteemed by his co-religionists.

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Victoria, Freeman's Journal, Sydney, 29 May 1858, p 3, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article115559570:

The Rev. Mr. Cronin, O.S.F., Dean of the Catholic College of St. Patrick, East Melbourne, died on the evening of May 19th, and was buried on Tuesday, May 21. He has been about four years in the country, and was a kind and much respected gentleman.

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Fr T.J. Linane, From Abel to Zundolovich, Vol. 2: Biographies of Priests on the Australian Scene up to 1900, 1980, p 109:

Cronin, John Bernard O.S.F., Irish
"Gifted and Highly Talented Young Clergyman"

The following is substantially a reprint of an article by Fr. John Keaney, Commission Chairman, and appeared in Footprints, vol. 2, No. 4:—

"The third clerical death in 1858 took place on the 18th of May. It was that of a "gifted and highly talented young clergyman", Rev. John Cronin, Dean of St. Patrick's College, Eastern Hill, Melbourne. Cronin died at 5 o'clock in the evening, a victim it would seem of tuberculosis. The age was 36. He had a short career on the Melbourne Mission, having arrived on 13 February 1855 by the 'Almora'. On the same vessel came Rev. Patrick Madden and Rev. John Parker. The 13th of February that year must have seemed a good day for Bishop Goold, for another ship berthed in Hobson's Bay bearing clerical reinforcements, Revs. Patrick Bermingham and Michael McAlroy, arriving on the 'Gipsy Bride' from Liverpool. Cronin's vessel had made the faster voyage by ten days. All the arrivals were destined to have short careers, Cronin's being the only one to be ended by death. Parker, a Chaplain from the Cork Workhouse, sailed for home in June 1856, having crossed swords in turn with Father Patrick Dunne and Bishop Goold. Bermingham and McAlroy, under a cloud in Melbourne, withdrew to bask in Riverina sunshine as from June 1857. Madden having done well with mining shares and acquiring sundry blocks of land around Ballan and Daylesford, returned to Ireland in September 1864. The modest fortune seems to have been used in building his parish church and convent in Klonakilty, County Cork.

The times and places of Cronin's ministry from his arrival in 1855 to appointment as Dean of St. Patrick's College in April 1858, tend to be obscure. After a short initial posting at St. Francis' he seems to have been alternating between Port Fairy and Hamilton, searching vainly all the while for a health recovery. Ill at the Grange (Hamilton), where he lived in a house near today's Botanic Gardens, he attracted the sympathetic attention of Dean Slattery of Warrnambool; Rev. L.B. Sheil, fellow Franciscan and President of St. Patrick's College; Rev. Ranald Rankin, the Highland priest from Moidart, who was with him at the Grange. The Hamilton people, so we are assured in extant letters, were extremely kind to their first resident priest; seeing little of him, however, for he spent most of his time confined to bed in the old stone Presbytery. The long journey back to Melbourne by coach and steamer in April 1858 must have hastened his death.

After Requiem Mass at St. Francis', celebrated by Dr. Sheil, undertaker John Daly led off to the new Melbourne Cemetery, where a new grave was dug beside that of Father Gerald Ward. In the presence of the clergy, students from the College, and a large group of citizens, Dr. Sheil read the burial service over his young friend. The annalist of St. Patrick's College, William Mason Finn, to be ordained priest a few years later, wrote that Father Cronin's loss would be deeply felt at the College . . . . "

Add these few details. M.D.H.C. correspondence suggests a sharp conflict between Cronin and the pastor in charge at Port Fairy, William Shinnick. But it was nothing unusual for the latter to be taking on fellow priests and Bishop. Cronin's remains were transferred from a cemetery tomb to the new Mortuary Chapel on 17 August 1871.