Robert Copland-Crawford

[5] While still at Harrow School, Crawford was selected to represent Scotland at football in the first "pseudo-international" organised by C. W. Alcock and Arthur Kinnaird in March 1870.

[17] As a member of the Harrow Chequers club, he played (as team captain) alongside his brother against the Wanderers in the opening match of the 1871–72 season, which ended scoreless.

In the match report in the Morning Post on Monday, 16 October 1871, the Crawford brothers were commended for being "conspicuous for excellent play".

[32] In mid-September 1888, he took up a six-month posting with the Sierra Leone Frontier Police,[3] but ended his career in disgrace after he was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour for causing a native servant to be flogged to death.

[33] Copland-Crawford was posted to the Sulymah district in the south-east of Sierra Leone, in an area described as "a narrow strip of coast in the south east of the colony, bounded by the territories of a number of independent native chieftains, who have never yet been considered subject to the British Crown".

Shortly after his appointment, he made a visit to one of the local chiefs, Makaia (or Mackiah), at the town of Lago with instructions from the Governor of Sierra Leone, Sir James Hay to "enter into negotiations with a view to a peaceable settlement of disorders that had taken place on the frontier".

His report was not favourably received by Hay who wrote back "While I am pleased to note that your journey has not been attended by any untoward accident, I cannot but remark that it is one which should not have been undertaken without specific instructions from the officer administering the Government, the more so as, at present, the relations between Mackiah and this Government are such that the future policy in dealing with him is one which requires much consideration".

[34] On 12 December, Copland-Crawford captured the town of Jehoma, killing 131 of Makaia's "warboys" with one policeman receiving serious injuries; this was again without authority from Governor Hay.

Copland-Crawford was yet again rebuked by Hay: "I have once more to point out that in so doing you have exceeded your instructions; you have no authority from this Government to assume the offensive by attacking towns".

[34] Copland-Crawford's actions eventually came to the attention of Parliament in London and, on 2 June 1890, were the subject of a heated debate with James Picton M.P.

In April 1889, Copland-Crawford was arrested on a charge of causing a native servant to be flogged to death, his object being to extort a confession of crime.

On his arrival at Liverpool he was examined by two doctors who reported that Copland-Crawford was suffering from the following conditions: Absence of reflex action at left knee, slightly present in right knee; impaired sensibility of left foot and leg up to knee; inability to clench the hands tightly; unsteadiness of gait; œdema of both ankles and feet; enlargement of abdomen (evidently from fluid) with increased size of liver and spleen; excited action of heart; marked mental excitement; slight hesitancy in speech.