CRAWFORD, Arthur Johnston (1786-1826), of Crawfordsburn, co. Down

Crawford, an Irish ministerialist, was again returned for Old Sarum at the general election of 1820 by his cousin, the 2nd earl of Caledon. He made no known votes or speeches during his last brief spell in the House. HP Commons, 1790-1820, iii. 524. He was granted a fortnight’s leave on urgent private business, 5 July 1820, but had in fact vacated his seat the day before. This was to make way for his relation Josias Du Pré Alexander, whose brother James, the other Member, had acquired control of the borough. Crawford died in October 1826. No will or entry in the death duty register has been found among the probate records of the province of Canterbury. His father, who died on 20 Feb. 1827, bequeathed his estates to his daughter Mabel Fridiswid’s husband, William Sharman, the eldest son of William Sharman of Moira Castle, county Down, former Member for Lisburn in the Irish House of Commons. Offering to make his mother-in-law generous provision, the appointed heir informed her that her husband

considered the will rather as a point of form, and that he relied chiefly on the more particular expression of his wishes to myself and from like cause he omitted any allusion to those matters which had been provided in the will, or rather memorandums, of his departed son. All of which, I of course pledge myself to execute. Belfast Commercial Chron. 26 Feb. 1827; PRO NI, Sharman Crawford mss D856/A6/4; E5/7; F61.

Sharman, who took the additional name of Crawford by royal licence later that year, unsuccessfully contested county Down in 1831 and Belfast in 1832, but sat as a Liberal for Dundalk, 1835-7, and Rochdale, 1841-52.