He was the son of Samuel Crawley, of Keysoe, and his wife, the heiress Eliza Rankin.
[3] She was involved in litigation of the 1780s with her cousin Mary Mellish, for the possession of Ragnall Hall ("the defendant was niece to the deceased, and one of the principal parties in his will").
[4][5] In an initial case at Nottingham Assizes in 1785, Mary Mellish was successful in her plea of trespass against Eliza Rankin.
In 1818 he was elected Member of Parliament for Honiton, through the influence of a relative,[1] He held the seat until 1826.
This article about a Liberal Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom representing an English constituency is a stub.