Robert Craufurd and Scotland: The Great Myth

One of the great challenges I had when writing my biography of Robert Craufurd, was trying to convince people that, contrary to what had been stated that he had been born in Scotland, he was, in fact, born in Essex, England. Pick up virtually any book that mentions Robert Craufurd or search his name on the internet and you’ll be informed he was born in Newark Castle, Ayrshire. He is also invariably described as a fiery Scot. Well, they’re wrong on both counts. Any diligent research into Robert’s early life would reveal that, not only was he not born in Scotland but there is no evidence that he even set foot in the country. True, his father was Scottish but he was living in England at the time of Robert’s birth. Robert was born in Essex and was baptised in Chigwell, Essex. He lived in Chigwell before the family moved to Richmond in Surrey, he went to Harrow School, was married in Central London, and later lived with his wife in various houses in and around London. So, from where do the ‘fiery Scot’ and Newark Castle myths originate? As with so many biographies the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the first place researchers start, or at least it was until the advent of the internet, and here we get our first major clue. The original entry for Robert Craufurd was written by the Anglo-American historian, Henry Morse Stephens (1857-1919) in the 1888 edition of the DNB.[i] When Stephens wrote the original entry he did not give a place of birth, only a date. There was nothing more other than that Robert was the son of Sir Alexander Craufurd and the brother of Charles Gregan Craufurd, (who himself was born in London.) He did, however, state that Sir Alexander Craufurd was ‘first baronet, Newark,’ a title which we know was only bestowed up Sir Alexander when Robert was sixteen years old. Based upon what was published in 1888 and what is printed in the latest revision of the DNB, done in 2004, my guess is that the myth about Robert having been born in Newark springs from the 2004 revision which was written by the historian David Gates.² The problem with this revision is that it states Robert as having been born in Newark Castle, Ayr, but it has not a shred of evidence to back it up. Just a brief scan of the sources accompanying the entry reveals nothing that contains a confirmed place of birth. The only notable addition to the original list of sources used by Stephens in 1888 is the 1891 biography of Craufurd entitled General Craufurd and his Light Division, by his grandson, the Reverend Alexander Craufurd, which, of course, had not been published when the DNB entry was written. Ironically, the good reverend said he did not know too much about his grandfather’s early life and that much of what he had written was gleaned from the 1888 DNB entry! ‘I am much indebted to an article in the Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Mr Leslie Stephen.’ This is perhaps understandable given that he was born twenty-one years after Robert died and was writing a further fifty-eight years after that. Furthermore, Robert’s son Charles, the Reverend Alexander’s father, was only nine when Robert died and considering his father was away on active service for most of this time it is unlikely he would have known that much about his father, save what was passed on by his mother, Fanny. The added list of manuscript sources in Gates’s revised article refer only to military matters later on in Robert’s career. The source of the myth relating to Robert’s birthplace is almost certainly a misinterpretation of the opening paragraph on his life in J.W. Cole’s Memoirs of British Generals Distinguished during the Peninsular War, published in 1856. The opening lines on Volume 1, page 221 clearly state Craufurd as having ‘descended from an old Scottish family, was the son of Alexander Craufurd, Esq., of Newark, in Ayrshire. His father, a collateral branch of the ancient line of the Craufurds of Kilbirney, was created a baronet in 1781.’ This is correct. However, nowhere does it say Robert was actually born in Newark Castle. It is just an assumption which has been followed blindly by every historian and, worse still, has spidered out into the world of the internet. Indeed, the error has been entered into literally scores of genealogical and historical websites, none of which can actually give a reference for Robert’s place of birth (some give the DNB) other than simply copying what other websites have done, assuming the fact is true. None appear to have actually checked any of the documents relating to Robert’s birth, baptism, or even his place of residence. It is one of the great dangers of the internet, that so much information is out there at the fingertips of anyone with a computer and yet so much is incorrect. Take that great modern oracle Wikipedia, for example, which (at the time of writing) cannot even spell the name ‘Craufurd’ consistently, spelling it correctly (for the most part) on Craufurd’s own page but incorrectly (Crauford) on the page relating to the Craufurd baronets. It also gives the incorrect church in which Robert and Fanny were married, again without a source. I’m not sure what editorial control the site’s owners have over its contributors but very little appears to be checked.

[1]. Stephen, Leslie (Ed.) Dictionary of National Biography, (New York and London, 1888), xiii, 41-42.

2. Matthew & Brian Harrison (Eds), The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, 2004), xiv, 53.