Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crawfurd, Thomas
CRAWFURD or CRAWFORD, THOMAS (d. 1662), author of a ‘History of the University of Edinburgh,’ was educated at St. Leonards College in the university of St. Andrews, where he matriculated in 1618 and graduated M.A. in 1621 (St. Andrews University Rolls). He was an unsuccessful candidate for the professorship of philosophy in the university of Edinburgh in 1625, but on 29 March of the following year he was inducted professor of humanity in the same university. On 26 Feb. 1630 he was appointed by the town council of Edinburgh to the rectorship of the high school. On the occasion of the visit of Charles I to Scotland in 1633 Crawfurd was appointed to assist John Adamson [q. v.], principal of the university, and William Drummond [q. v.] of Hawthornden in devising the pageants and composing the speeches and verses. These were published under the title ‘Εἰσόδια Musarum Edinensium in Caroli Regis ingressu in Scotiam,’ 1633. On 31 Dec. 1640 he returned to the university as public professor of mathematics, and on 3 Jan. following he was in addition made one of the regents of philosophy, the total annual salary granted him for discharging the duties of both chairs being six hundred merks (33l. 6s. 8d.) At the M.A. graduation ceremony Crawfurd introduced the custom of publishing ‘Theses Mathematicæ.’ In a document in the university library he is styled ‘a grammarian and philosopher, likewise profoundly skilled in theology, and a man of the greatest piety and integrity.’ He died 30 March 1662. Crawfurd's ‘History of the University of Edinburgh from 1580 to 1646’ was published in 1808, from the transcript in the university library made by Matthew Crawford from the original, which he states to be then in the possession of Professor Laurence Dundas of the university. He was also the author of ‘Locorum Nominum propriorum Gentilitium vocumque difficiliorum, quæ in Latinis Scotorum Historiis occurrunt, explicatio vernacula,’ which, edited with additions and emendations by C. Irvine, was published in 1665; and ‘Notes and Observations on Mr. George Buchanan's History of Scotland, wherein the difficult passages of it are explained, the chronology in many places rectified, and an account is given of the genealogies of the most considerable families of Scotland,’ 1708, printed from a manuscript in the Advocates' Library. All these works are in the library of the British Museum. In the Advocates' Library there are some manuscript notes of Crawfurd's on ‘Virgil.’
[Histories of the University of Edinburgh by Crawfurd, Dalzell, and Grant; Stevens's History of the High School of Edinburgh; British Museum Catalogue.]