After a few years as a surveyor, McCrae joined the Victorian Government service, eventually becoming Deputy Registrar-General, and also a prominent figure in literary circles.
His son Hugh McCrae, also a poet, produced a volume of memoirs (My Father and My Father's Friends) about George and his association with such literary figures as Henry Kendall, Adam Lindsay Gordon, Richard Henry Horne and Marcus Clarke.
George McCrae wrote novels, stories, poetry, and travel sketches, and illustrated books.
After his retirement, unpublished manuscripts entitled 'Reminiscences—Experiences not Exploits' contain detailed descriptions of events from his youth and present a record of the early European part of Melbourne country-side.
McCrae died 15 August 1927 at Hawthorn in Melbourne, survived by four of his six children, including Dorothy Frances Perry, also an author.