Crawford family.

Rev. Henry Crawford was born in England in 1816 at Chelsfield Court Lodge, Kent, England. He was the son of Robert Crawford (1789-1860) and his wife, Elizabeth Elvy Crawford (1788-1850). Henry studied with a surgeon and practiced medicine in Kent before pursuing theological studies at King's College, London. In 1851 he, along with his wife Caroline Wallen Crawford and their children, traveled to Jerusalem, where Henry became Chaplain of Christ Church. Ill health forced him to return to England several years prior to his death in 1863.

In Jerusalem Henry became friends with Robert Grant Brown, a Presbyterian minister and missionary. Robert, who was the son of Rev. George Brown, had previously been sent to Alexandria by the Scottish Society for the Conversion of Israel, and also traveled in Aleppo and Lebanon. In 1855, Robert married Henry's sister, Susanna Frances Crawford, who had traveled to Jerusalem to visit Henry. In 1876 Robert became Secretary to the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Jews.

The connection between the Crawford and Brown families continued into the next generation, when Rev. Henry Crawford's son Henry Leighton Crawford married his cousin Elizabeth Alba Brown (daughter of Robert Grant Brown and Susanna Frances Crawford Brown).