[2] Though born in Leicester, Crawford was brought up in Surrey where his father had become chaplain at the Cane Hill mental hospital at Coulsdon.

[2] At school and in early club cricket, according to a tribute to him written in the 1923 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack by his Surrey colleague Digby Jephson, he was regarded primarily as a fast bowler, and he took eight wickets in an innings for 35 runs against the full Surrey side in a minor match in 1895.

[4] Crawford's second first-class game after his debut in 1896 was a Gentlemen v Players match at Hastings at the end of the 1897 season when his captain was W. G.

Batting largely in the lower middle order, he was renowned for fast scoring, but Jephson wrote that "he was essentially a scientific hitter not a slogger".

[4] He added: "He was strictly orthodox in all his methods of attack or defence, and the straightness of his bat was a thing to marvel at...

[8] Jephson's reminiscence in the 1923 Wisden recalled another innings in that season, in which Crawford hit flagstaffs on the two towers of the football pavilion at the Park Avenue ground, Bradford with straight drives for six.

In the First World War he served with the East Surrey Regiment; he is recorded in the London Gazette as having relinquished his commission as a temporary lieutenant on 18 January 1919 "on account of ill-health contracted on active service".