Lynne Hadley (amitie @t bigpond.com) from Australia, writes  I am researching a seaman, Edmund Crawley.  Crawley was born at Hemel Hempstead on the 14th of February 1721.  He was on board HMS Mermaid during a voyage from Halifax to England in 1767, and was admitted to the Jennings Ward at Greenwich Hospital in 1771.  A later record shows that he 'absconded' from the hospital.  We have some personal writings from this man, showing that he suffered from delusions and so I had assumed that perhaps the Jennings Ward was reserved for psychiatric patients - but unfortunately I have been unable to locate any information at all on this ward.  Another idea has occurred to me - given that there are many Crawleys in North America who have originated from Halifax, perhaps it is possible that Crawley's family were left behind there when Mermaid sailed for England?  He is noted in the Greenwich Hospital records to have had (in 1771) a wife, four sons and three daughters.  His own father was John Crawley.  I would be extremely grateful for any information/advice that you may be able give.

Sources are important and it is not clear what sources you have consulted and what ones proved negative. For instance have you paid someone to look in the records in the Public Records Office - which is the most likely place to look for relevant military records. Hemel Hempstead is some way inland and it is not usual for people who lived there to be linked with the sea - so I am interested to know how you know that the Edmund Crawley who was born in Hemel Hempstead in 1721 is the same one that was on the HMS Mermaid in 1767. Definitely if he was a seaman in the Royal Navy I would have expected his wife and children to be living in a suitable port - such as Portsmouth - which effectively rules out anywhere in Hertfordshire and as such queries about his naval career and his wife and children lie outside the scope of this web site.

However it is worth commenting on the Crawley family of Hemel Hempstead. The 1881 census, although over 150 years later, allows the distribution of a surname to be studied. In total there were almost 6,000 Crawleys in the census - and over half of them were in the London/Middlesex area. The commonest county was Hertfordshire with 7% of the total - and within Hertfordshire, Hemel Hempstead was the town with the highest population - 63 individuals. Familysearch shows that the name "Edmund Crawley" occurs in the parish records from 1680 and was possibly a family given name. However I note from the National Burial Index that a John Crawley, aged 52 or 53, was buried in Hemel Hempstead in 1812 and was associated with the Baptist Church. This could well mean that at least some of the Crawleys born in Hemel Hempstead in the 18th century were not baptised in the Church of England - and there may well be no surviving records of their births/baptisms.

February 2002

Lynne Hadley (amitie @t bigpond.com)  reports I wrote a query to you some time ago re: Edmund Crawley who was born at Hemel Hempstead in 1721, and who served on HMS Mermaid in 1766-67.  I employed a researcher who located his muster and hospital records for me.  According to his hospital records, he was living in London prior to his admission to Greenwich Hospital in 1771, and yes - he was definitely from Hemel Hempstead.  Perhaps he was the proverbial "black sheep" of the family?  My researcher has traced his ships, and I'm hoping to receive more information on him very shortly.  Thank you for responding to my query - I know that you must have absolutely hundreds of these pouring in, and I appreciate you taking the time to deal with mine.  Warmest regards, Lynne.

July 2002

Lynne Hadley (amitie @t bigpond.com)  says: Chris, I thought that perhaps you might be interested to know that the information I had on Edmund Crawley was contained in his Bible.  He had written a couple of pages on a vision he had seen on the return journey from Halifax to England in 1767.  He is an interesting and very elusive man!  Ironically, I became interested in the captain of his ship, Joseph Deane, who played a very big part in the fall of Quebec in 1760.  Cheers, Lynne.

Bibles, and other family papers, can be invaluable sources of information, but are so easily lost. When my maternal grandfather died my Aunt threw out all the old papers in his desk - which we believed included some documents which were then approaching 200 years old. Fortunately a few years earlier he had donated a large collection of papers belonging to his uncle to the Bucks Records Office. As a result the loss was not too serious. However none of my paternal grandfather's papers survived - but (through a different branch of the family) his father's scrapbook is still in the family.

August 2002

Denis Shelton (bisden @t pnc.com.au) of Sydney, Australia, writes You had a request from a Lynne Hadley last December about an Edmund Crawley. I purchased his Bible from an auction just over a month ago with his quaint notes and records of some of his visions. You may give her my email address if it is of interest to her.

Thank you for reporting your find - and I am passing details to Lynne Hadley. It is surprising how easy it is for such valuable family documents cane get lost. Our local auction room sells perhaps 500 lots of assorted books a year - mostly from house clearances from West Herts and the nearby parts of Bucks. Many of the lots contain old bibles (so common that they have no value) and presentation copies of books given for attendence at Sunday School, etc.. Victorian photo albums - rarely with any of the photographs identified - are another regular feature - and each time I seen one I realise that the pictures may well be of someone's ancestors - but because they are not identified the family history context has been lost for ever. Every time I hear that something is rescued and correctly identified I am delighted.

Lynne Hadley (amitie @t bigpond.com) responds: Thank you so much for passing this on to me.  I shall contact Denis Shelton shortly.  Wonderful that the Bible is in the hands of a collector - ensures its safety and preservation for posterity

November 2003

Charles Arthur (charles.arthur@hiscox.com) write An Edmund Crawley was one of my 5 greats-grandfathers; his family came from the Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire area. His elder son was born in 1750 so his likely birth date is the 1720s. I assume he was in the navy as he was latterly based in Halifax, Nova Scotia where he was a member of H.M. Council of Nova Scotia. He was granted 10,000 acres in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Two sons, Admiral Edward (d.1834)and Captain John (d.1816), commanded ships at the battle of the Nile and retired to Wales afterwards. Part of their Welsh property descended eventually to my grandmother. Some records are preserved in the Crawley-Vincent Manuscripts at the University of Wales, Bangor. It appears therefore that there was more than one naval Edmund Crawley in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the late 18th century.

One must never forget the dangers of confusing people with the same name - see Right Name, Wrong Body.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.