CRAWFORDS AND RELIGION
I suspect that our Crawford and perhaps their relations were attracted to northern Ireland by the conditions created much earlier by the Plantation of Ulster. This has a particular religious connotation at the outset. Its aim was to balance the Catholics with Protestants and thereby enable more political control. The repercussion were violent right up to recent times, but it appears that at least for a while conditions were favourable for our ancestors.
By the 1920s the conflict which had been mainly limited to the south impacted on the north too. Religious identity and politics were intertwined and society was disrupted, even unsafe.
There are several factors that I suspect influenced our Crawfords at this point. While some of them signed the Ulster Covenant, they were perhaps not very politically minded and sought a more neutral religion, neither Catholic or Protestant. They had been Presbyterianism until then. Life was tough. They were not at all well off; in fact they looked poor by today's standards. I suspect that Hugh was ill and this was a factor. He died in 1904, but had become very involved in the church before that. While we see his and some other Crawfords mentioned in records that I have come across, I have no idea about the feelings and leanings of the rest of the family. Christian Science must have appeared politically neutral, innovative and in line with other sociological and philosophical thinking and offering solutions to health and wealth.
Wiki tells us :
The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and founder and discoverer of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and works of [Christ Jesus]" and "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".
This must have been very attractive to them. By 1896 it was becoming known in Ireland. A society in Belfast was recognised by The Mother Church in 1903. We cannot be sure if Hugh Crawford joined the church, but he certainly knew of it. Consider these extracts from a thesis on the subject:
Further evidence of working class involvement came from a local account of the church in Belfast . In 1896 or 7 two sisters named Robinson, who were strict Presbyterians, received a copy of Science and Health from a relative in America. Being "almost afraid to look at it" they sought the counsel of a Mr. Crawford who supplied the drapers shop they owned with knitted goods and who was also a strict Presbyterian. He found "much good" in the book and the sisters studied it secretly, eventually going to New York, where one of them became a practitioner. Unknown to the Robinsons, a Miss Riddel, who was an English missionary to the railwaymen in Belfast, heard about Christian Science in the late 1890's and took instruction from Mrs Field-King in London.
Soon after, she returned to Belfast to start the movement there. In 1898, Miss
Riddel successfully undertook healing work for one of Crawford's children and
thereafter regular public services were held in a house rented by Miss Riddel
which Crawford and his family attended. Others joined the group, including a postman, an upholsterer, a joiner, and people from similar walks of life. Soon
afterwards, a family of linen and woollen manufacturers, the Wilsons, improved
the financial circumstances of the group by paying the rent of the house where
the meetings were held. Eventually, however, disagreement occurred and the
Wilsons, taking the law into their own hands, forcibly ejected from the house those members who were loyal to Miss Riddel. Miss Riddel's group eventually settled in a house in Lincoln Avenue where services were held for about two years.
After a visit to London, Miss Riddel introduced new ideas to the group (possibly New Thought), supplanting the (official) Christian Science Journal with a publication called the "Washington Post". Crawford and his family objected and, on being excluded, began their own services, later attracting to them some of the Lincoln Avenue group. Such a history, revealing as it does the fragility of Christian Science orthodoxy and the fissiparous character of some of these local churches, is presented here to indicate the working and lower middle class beginnings of at least some local churches. The tendency to seek the patronage of better-to-do (and perhaps better educated) people was always strong, however.
Crawford sought the help of the First Reader of the well-established Dublin church, Lady Ashbourne, who was a daughter of Marjorie Colles, one of the earliest Christian Scientists. Lady Ashbourne's daughter, the Hon. Frances Gibson, with a Miss Browning, went to stay in Belfast with the idea of helping those in the city to start up public services again. In about 1902, a hall was hired in Wellington Place, where a recognised church was formed. Crawford was appointed First Reader, and his stand against the heretical followers of Miss Riddel was much appreciated by members in later years.
[Christian Science, an American Religion in Britain. 1895 - 1940
Claire F. Gartrell-Mills. See weblinks-Ireland.]
All this had an influence on later life. My grandmother, Annie, met my grandfather Cuthbert Wells of like mind in South Africa through it. My mother and father met with similar shared interests. And I was to be brought up as a Christian Scientist - something that I regret.
Also in that text we learn that Hugh Crawford supplied the drapery industry. This leads me to the presumption that he had his own business that may have supplied Robinson and Cleaver, the large department store that also produced textiles.
Now there were Robinson sisters in the congregation. That is very significant. Daisy Crawford was to find work at Robinson and Cleaver and even lived at Stormont. (See DAISY CRAWFORD).
Postscript.
The Christian Science church saw a dwindling congregation and in 2013 was sold to the worldwide Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) which has its headquarters in the Philippines. It stands behind the university on the corner of University Avenue and Rugby Road. It was designed in 1936-7 by Clough Williams-Ellis Link Link. The architect is best known for Portmeirion. Our Hugh Crawford was long dead by the time it as built, but he evidently had an influence on the rise of Christian Science at the time.
Christian Science Church in Belfast : https://christiansciencebelfast.com/index.php/this-church/
