Crawford and Company was a major grocery store in the early days of Adelaide; for many years the largest family owned concern in the colony.
Businessman Ellis Edwards had purchased the grocery business of W. Morgan at No.24 Hindley Street in July 1869.
[8] In September 1881 Hugh Crawford and his son Robert were granted Storekeepers' Colonial Wine Licences.
[13][14] The premises, attracting an annual rent of £240, amongst many others owned by Jacob Barrow Montefiore, was auctioned after his death, and was knocked down to W. Kuhnel for £5,250.
[15] In 1933 Crawford & Co was purchased by Sydney Oscar Beilby (c. 1880 – 3 February 1944),[16] who sold up his businesses in 1938,[17] and was in turn taken over by Wilkinson and Co. in 1949,[18] but continued to trade as a subsidiary, S. O. Beilby Ltd. Hugh Archibald Crawford (c. 1824 – 6 October 1881) ran a "Family Grocer and Corn Dealer", in Rundle Street, Adelaide, then in 1852 took over S. F. Mann's "City Grocery Mart" in Hindley Street, Adelaide, as "H. A. Crawford, Family Grocer", specialising in tea and coffee.
[19] He quit the grocery business in 1858 for Kirkala sheep station, near Streaky Bay which he took up with his brother-in-law James Munro Linklater (c. 1810 – 17 December 1882).
[21] He later brought in as partner an erstwhile competitor Ellis Edwards, whom he bought out in 1878[6] and restyled the business as Crawford & Son.
He was deputy chairman of the SA Dried Fruits Board from 1928, and promoted its system of sending Christmas parcels of South Australian produce to England.