Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crabtree, Henry
CRABTREE or KRABTREE, HENRY (fl. 1685), astrologer, would scarcely deserve mention here but for the fact that he has sometimes been confounded with William Crabtree the astronomer. He was born either at Norland or at Sowerby, in the parish of Halifax, and is said to have been a schoolfellow of Archbishop Tillotson. He became curate of Todmorden in Lancashire, and in 1685 published ‘Merlinus Rusticus, or a Country Almanack’ (London, printed for the company of Stationers). From the long description of the contents given in the title-page (which is copied in the anonymous ‘History of Halifax’) it appears that the object of the book was mainly astrological. No copy of it is found in the library of the British Museum.
[Hist. of the Town and Parish of Halifax (Halifax, 1789), p. 320; Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. v. 192.]