The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Crawford, James Coutts
Crawford, James Coutts, F.G.S., only son of Captain J. C. Crawford, R.N., by his second wife Jane, daughter of Admiral John Inglis, of Redhall, N.B., was born on Jan. 19th, 1817, and was educated at the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and joined H.M.S. Prince Regent in the Channel Fleet. He was engaged on the east and west coasts of South Africa and elsewhere, and received the medal of the Royal Humane Society for saving life. In 1837, when sub-lieutenant, he left the navy and went to Sydney. He visited New Zealand in 1838, and after some squatting experiences in Queensland, settled in New Zealand in 1846. In 1860 he was appointed to the Legislative Council, and in 1862 made a geological survey of the province of Wellington. In order to drain the Hataitai peninsula, he excavated the first tunnel in New Zealand. Mr. Crawford is the author of "Recollections of Travel in New Zealand and Australia" (1880); "The Reform of English Spelling" (London, 1883). He retired from the Legislative Council in 1867, and was fifteen years Resident Magistrate and Sheriff at Wellington, besides being a Captain in the New Zealand and 1st Lanark Militia. Mr. Coutts Crawford married first, on Nov. 28th, 1843, Sophia, youngest daughter of Sir James Whitley Deans Dundas, G.C.B., of Barton Court, co. Berks, and Aston Hall, co. Flint, who died 1852; and, secondly, in Aug. 1857, Jessie, only daughter of Alexander McBarnet, of Torridon and Attadale, Ross-shire, Scotland, who died in 1880. He died in London on April 8th, 1889.