Biography

Known as Len. Lindsay Crawford was burned to death in his camp at Younami. He slept in a camp which was enclosed by a bush shed. Crawford's camp was found in flames but it was impossible to rescue him. His charred body was afterwards found on the ruins of the bed. The deceased was in the habit of reading in bed with a lamp on one side and a candle on the other. It is expected that one of these was accidentally overturned and in this way the camp was fired. Only a few weeks previously, the deceased had a narrow escape from being burnt to death in the same way. The late Mr Crawford lived in the Laverton district for a considerable time up to about five years before his death, when he left and went to Youanmi, where he was employed as sampler on a mine. The deceased was the discoverer of "Crawford's Patch," about three miles from Laverton, from which he won a large quantity of gold. Included in it were many beautiful specimens. He found the patch in 1895. Subsequently, he was one of the party that discovered the Augusta Gold Mine, Laverton, on which there was a new plant being installed at the time of his death. Crawford was the tenth of 14 children born to a Scottish couple who married 15 June 1847 at Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and whose first four children were born in Scotland before the family migrated to South Australia. The deceased's siblings were: Jessie Milroy born 1848; John born 1849; Annie Harkness born 1850; Marion Whigham born 1852; William Milroy born 26 September 1854; Margaret born 14 July 1856; Thomas Angus born 14 July 1858; Robert Lindsay born 15 June 1860; stillborn female 1862; Evangeline Amelia born 1865; Flora Maude born 8 May 1868; Arabella Robina born 1869; Wycliffe Wallace born 29 January 1873. The patriarch of the family, William Milroy, died on 8 February 1899 in South Australia, his wife on 20 September 1904.