Apparently he did leave very quickly!
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1889 John Crawford was born on 6 February 1889 in West Derby, Lancashire, the son of John Paton Crawford, an assistant manager at a marine engine works, and his wife, Ellen Edith Scott.
1891 census sees him living at 1 st Vincent St, Bishop Wearmouth, Co Durham. His father is a Manufacturing Marine Engineer Works Manager
He was educated at Liverpool College (he was later Vice-President, Liverpool College)
1905 Apr. Campbell College, Belfast (school number 719), when his father John P. Crawford, was living at Belgravia, Kirkliston Drive, Belfast. His brother also went to Campbell (school number 720)
and was apprenticed in a marine engineering works, also travelling widely on the Continent and in the Far East between 1911 and 1915.
1915 May 2 Landed in France as a Private in Army Service Corps
1915 Jul 9 Commissioned in Army Service Corps
1916 he married Amy Middleton-Andrews; they had two sons.
1920 Jun 8. Royal Army Service Corps. John Scott Crawford, from temp. Capt., to be Capt.
1920 Oct 1. Royal Army Service Corps. Capt. J. S. Crawford to be acting Major.
Fitzwilliam Square
1920 Nov 20. Captain Crawford narrowly escaped death after the IRA entered a guesthouse in Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, where he was staying, looking for a Major Callaghan. On not finding Crawford in bed with his wife, they debated whether or not to shoot Crawford. Captain Crawford’s wife appealed to the men who seemed intent on shooting her husband. She convinced them that he was not the Major O’Callaghan/Callighan they required. Before they left one man warned ‘you bloody well clear out of this country in 20 hours, or we will do for you tomorrow night ’. Campbell College confirmed that he was JS Crawford, an old boy of the school and that he did leave Dublin very quickly.
1921 Feb 21. Royal Army Service Corps. Capt. J. S. Crawford relinquishes the acting rank of Major.
1921 Jun 7. F. Res. M.T. Co (D.F). The notifications regarding J. S. Crawford in London Gaz. 7 June 1921 is cancelled - this was to make him a temp. Capt.
1928 Jan 25. Seconded to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, as temporary inspector of mechanical transport,
1932 Dec 13. Deputy assistant director of mechanization at the War Office.
1934 Jul 1. Major J S Crawford appointed brevet lieutenant-colonel
1935 Oct 22. Deputy Assistant director of mechanization at War Office.
1937 Jan 1. Promoted to Lt-Colonel
1937 Promoted full colonel
1938 Jan 20 Granted local rank of Colonel while employed Assistant Director of mechanization at War Office.
1938 Jul 1. Promoted Brevet Col. but relinquishes local rank of Colonel.
1939 Feb 20. Deputy Director of Mechanisation War Office with local rank of Brigadier General
1939, Crawford left the War Office for the new Ministry of Supply, first as Director of Mechanization in charge of tank production, then Deputy Director-General of Tanks and Transport. Some of his papers deal in detail with his important work during the Second World War on the production of tanks and other armoured vehicles and his continuing interest and involvement in this and similar fields after the war when he headed a Mission to the United States to discuss the simplification of industry.
1940 CBE
Churchill tank production
1941 he had been promoted to major-general,
1943, became Deputy Director-General of Armaments Production.
1945 Jan 1. CB (Military Division)
1946 Crawford joined the Board of Guy Motors Limited and of FN (England) Limited, became a member of Council of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (serving as Vice-President, 1948-1950 and Treasurer, 1953-1957) and also a Director of the Sunbeam Trolleybus Company Limited. He was also President of the Rubber Research Association (1952-54), the Institute of Engineering Inspection (1953-54) and of Liverpool College (1953-54), and Master of the Court of the Worshipful Company of Carmen (1957-58). In addition Crawford was made a lifetime member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1945 and a member of the Institution of Marine Engineers.
1963 commander of the order of Leopold II of Belgium
1978 Jun 4. He died in Richmond upon Thames. Living at 36 Denbigh Gardens, Richmond, Surrey. His papers were given to Churchill College in March 1979 by his son, Major John M. Crawford Retd. MC, acting on behalf of his mother, his brother and himself. Almost half of the collection is taken up with manuscript and typescript drafts of General Crawford's autobiography and this material is supplemented by his diaries running, with a few gaps, from 1930 to 1975.
This may or may not be connected. There is the story in Bloody Sunday, Gleeson, that talks about a raid on Mrs Horan's high class boarding house near St Stephens Green. According to Mrs Horan the gang came to shoot a "Mr Cleveden" a Civil Servant, and a "nice young man", who had not been in his room that night. However the next Tuesday, Mr Cleveden, returned in the uniform of a British Officer, in an armoured car and a lorry load of Auxiliaries. He entered the house with an armed escort, packed his belongings and left without saying a word. He did not pay his rent either. Thoms 1923 does not have a Mrs Horan with a guest house in Fitzwilliam Square. There is no mention in Mrs Horan's account of a wife though.
To explore for lodgings, and compare with Bowen at 28 Lower Fitzwilliam St
9 Lwr Fitzwilliam street, Mrs. Ann Ryan, boarding house (Orion house)
4 Hume st Miss Elizabeth Crosbie, hotel and boarding house
Hume St might fit the description better as it's between Stephens Green and Lower Pembroke St and therefore close to Fitzwilliam Square.The address is no longer a boarding house in 1927.