He was the father of the novelist Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie (who worked as John Oliver Hobbes).
[1] A Boston resident in adulthood, he married Laura Hortense Arnold in 1863, and moved to London permanently in 1867, though retaining his American citizenship all his life.
His best known business achievement was a major and successful marketing campaign from 1877 onward to popularise the cigarette in Britain.
[4] He largely retired from business after the early death in 1906 of his daughter Pearl Craigie, who lived and worked part-time in her own villa near Steephill.
His Times obituary recalled him as "the pioneer of a doubtful benefit", though crediting him with having "helped greatly to promote trade relations between England and the United States".