John Crawley

John Crawley (26 April 1703 – 9 September 1767) was an English landowner and politician.

Early life Crawley was born on 26 April 1703 in an old Luton family. Among his siblings were Sarah Crawley and Samuel Crawley, British consul in Smyrna.

His maternal grandparents were Anne ( Smith) Dashwood (a daughter of John Smith of Tedworth and sister to John Smith, Chancellor of the Exchequer) and Sir Samuel Dashwood, Lord Mayor of London and MP for the City of London. His paternal grandparents were Mary ( Clutterbuck) Crawley (a daughter of London merchant Richard Clutterbuck) and Francis Crawley of Northaw, Baron of the Exchequer (son of Sir Francis Crawley, who was appointed Justice of the Common Pleas by the king in 1632, but was disabled by Parliament). which his father bought in 1708. Together, they were the parents of two sons and two daughters, including: her brother was Sir Henry Hawley, 1st Baronet. Susanna Crawley (1744–1830), who married the Rev. John Keet. Sarah Crawley, who in 1784 married Thomas Halsey of Gaddesden Place, MP for Hertfordshire. Samuel Crawley (d. 1805), who bought the Dunham estate and married Eliza Rankin, heiress of Ragnall Hall, in 1788.

Crawley died on 9 September 1767. His estates were inherited by his eldest son John. Upon John's death in 1815, the estates passed to his nephew, Samuel Crawley. His estate, Stockwood House, was demolished in 1964 and, today, is the site of Stockwood Park.

Descendants Through his daughter Sarah, he was a grandfather of Sarah Halsey (d. 1864), who inherited the Halsey family estates and married Rev. John Fitz Moore and Joseph Thompson Whately (both of whom adopted the surname Halsey), MP for St Albans. Sarah's daughter, Georgiana Theodosia Halsey, married Col. Leopold Grimston Paget (youngest son of Berkeley Paget, MP, and a grandson of Henry Paget, 1st Earl of Uxbridge). Sarah's son Thomas Plumer Halsey, MP for Hertfordshire, whose descendants became the Halsey baronets.

Through his younger son Samuel, he was a grandfather of Samuel Crawley (1790–1852), who inherited the Stockwood, Dunham and Ragnall estates. He served as MP for Honiton and Bedford.