CRAWLEY, Samuel (1790-1852), of Stockwood, nr. Luton, Beds. and Ragnall Hall, Notts.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1818 - 1826
1832 - 1837
21 May 1838 - 1841

Family and Education

b. 16 Dec. 1790, o.s. of Samuel Crawley of Keysoe, Beds. by w. Eliza née Rankin, h. of Ragnall. educ. Eton 1805-8; Christ Church, Oxf. 1808. m. (1) 19 June 1817, Theodosia Mary (d. 3 Jan. 1820), da. of Robert Vyner II*, 1 da.; (2) 15 July 1822, Maria, da. of Christopher Musgrave of Kempton Park, Mdx., 5s. 1 da. suc. fa. 1805; uncle John Crawley to Stockwood 1815.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Beds. 1817-18.

Biography

Crawley came of an old Bedfordshire family who bought Stockwood in 1708 and added substantially to their property in the Luton area during the eighteenth century. This comfortable inheritance came to him on the death of his uncle in 1815.

At the general election of 1818 he contested the venal borough of Honiton, where a relative had some influence with the local election brokers, and came second in the poll. He voted with government on the Wyndham Quin* affair, 29 Mar., and against Tierney’s censure motion, 18 May; but his hostile votes on the royal household bill, 19 Mar., the sinking fund, 13 May, the coal duties, 20 May, the national finances, 7 June, and the excise duties bill, 18 and 25 June 1819, presaged his later change of allegiance to the Whigs. He is not known to have spoken in the House before 1820.

In 1832 Denis le Marchant wrote that Crawley, ‘one of the most handsome boys in the school’ during their Eton days, was now ‘very dissolute and ill-conditioned’ and that ‘the less said about his life the better’. He died at Naples, 21 Dec. 1852.

W. Austin, Hist. of a Beds. Fam; Beds. N and Q, ii. 270, 323; Three Early 19th Cent. Diaries ed. Aspinall, 287-8.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: P. A. Symonds

Notes