As well as a wood engraver and writer, he was a businessman, patron of the arts, campaigner for the preservation of architecture, collaborator of Charles Keene, book designer, collector of antiquities, and keen angler, as well as becoming secretary of the Newcastle Arts Association in 1880.
Fully absorbed in the life of a thriving and productive city, he made a significant contribution to Newcastle in every area of interest that he pursued.
In his role as a collector of antiquities he published A Beuk o’ Newcassell Sangs Collected by Joseph Crawhall in 1888.
Crawhall's A pictorial archive of quaint cuts in the chap book style was published by Dover Press (now long out of print) is a collection of woodcuts.
They lived at Allendale, where Thomas was chief agent for Beaumonts lead mines, and there they raised twelve children.