Biography

Robert Crawford 1851-1933

Robert Crawford made his fortune through the gold-rush in Otago, not as a gold-digger, but as a hardware merchant, which was how most of Dunedin’s fortunes were made. He had four daughters: Essie, Nellie, Agnes and Ivy. He retired in his fifties and lived in Highgate. He is remembered by his granddaughter, Daphne Purves, as ‘a very dynamic character, lots of personality. He taught me to play five hundred and he would slap the joker down on the table–very forceful!’

He is also remembered as being generous despite his Scottish origins. ‘He was well-to-do, having invested profitably in the McGeorge Bros gold-dredge on the Kawarau, and when his daughters were in their late teens he gave them both a trip to England, which was most unusual in those days.’

Robert was a great help to his daughter Nellie and her children during the difficult First World War years. He died in 1933 at the age of eighty-two and is buried in the Northern Cemetery in Dunedin.

— Other burials recorded at the same site:
Edward Robert CRAWFORD d. 1886,
Edith May CRAWFORD d. 1894,
Agnes Elizabeth CRAWFORD d. 1896,
Agnes Elizabeth CRAWFORD d. 1914,
Ivy Irene MCLAY d. 1917,
and Margaret Wylie CRAWFORD d. 1941.