He was the first to be accepted by the Baptist Missionary Society of England as one of the pioneers who were going to help Thomas J. Comber found the Congolese Mission.

When the French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza had passed through in the other direction, he had advised the people to resist Stanley's Belgians.

[1] On 26 February 1881 Henry Morton Stanley, Victor Harou and Paul Nève boarded the Royal and steamed upstream from Isangila.

The missionaries decided that he should return to England to tell the society's committee about the mission's situation and expedite shipment of provisions and back-up personnel.

Crudgington also hoped to be able to acquire a steel whaling boat for use in the navigable part of the Congo River between Isangila and Manyanga.

He left England to return to the Congo on 18 April 1882 with supplies and new staff, including Herbert Dixon.