Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crawford, John
CRAWFORD, JOHN (1816–1873), Scottish poet, was born at Greenock in 1816 in the same apartment in which his cousin, Mary Campbell, the ‘Highland Mary’ of Burns's song, had died thirty years previously. He learned the trade of a house-painter, and in his eighteenth year removed to Alloa, where he died 13 Dec. 1873. In 1850 he published ‘Doric Lays, being Snatches of Song and Ballad,’ which met with high encomiums from Lord Jeffrey. In 1860 a second volume of ‘Doric Lays’ appeared. At the time of his death he was engaged on a history of the town of Alloa, and this, edited by Dr. Charles Rogers, was published posthumously under the title ‘Memorials of Alloa, an historical and descriptive account of the Town.’
[Charles Rogers's Modern Scottish Minstrel, vi. 98–100; J. Grant-Wilson's Poets and Poetry of Scotland, ii. 396–7.]