[CROSS a., CROSS- 4.] A bench placed at right angles to other benches. spec. In the House of Lords, at Westminster, certain benches so placed, on which independent or neutral members sometimes sit.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. p. xvii. He seated himself upon the cross benches, an unusual position to take in the House of Lords.
1849. Ht. Martineau, Hist. Eng., I. 15. The cross-benches of neutrality in the House of Commons.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 15 Feb., 3/1. Lord Granville’s answer to Lord Wemyss’s demand for more cross-benches is one of the neatest things on record.
b. attrib., esp. in the phrase cross-bench mind.
1884. Ld. Granville, Sp. in Ho. Lords (Pall Mall Gaz., 15 Feb., 3/1). Individually … I have no great sympathy with the cross-bench mind…. While … I prefer a good Liberal I am afraid I also prefer even a good Tory to those who are neither fish, fowl, flesh, nor good herring.
1884. Dk. Argyll, Sp. in Ho. Lords, 7 July. It would be well for this House if a great majority of its members had the cross-bench mind.
Hence Cross-bencher, one who occupies a cross-bench, or asserts his independency of party; Cross-benchedness.
1885. Contemp. Rev., March, 456. Though posing as a cross-bencher, the author writes in a strong Tory spirit of Nationalism.
1885. Sat. Rev., 24 Jan., 101/2. Cross-benchedness has not exactly been justified of all her children.
