Crawford, James Archer

died 7 April 1934, Naseby, Otago aged 104 years (1)
death registered - 1934/6702 aged 104 years

Mr. J. A. Crawford, a Crimean veteran, who died at Naseby on Saturday (7 April 1934) at the advanced aged of 104.
Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 83, 9 April 1934, Page 7

Hardly Veteran.
At Ninety-three Works a Naseby Garden.

To be capable of keeping a quarter acre garden and orchard in excellent trim at the age of 93 is the privilege of Mr James Crawford, one of the earliest settlers of Naseby.

"I have just been doing a bit of digging," was one of Mr Crawford's first remarks to a newspaper reporter who called on him, and a subsequent conversation showed that his mental powers remain even more than equal to his physical powers.

Mr Crawford is a Crimean veteran, and he was through all the engagements in which the navy played a part as a member of the complement of H.M.S. Trafalgar. More than that, he went to Naseby from the Victorian goldfields more than 60 years ago, and he and his party had to clear away 2ft of snow before they could pitch their tent.

All the privations and occasional compensations of the early diggers' life were his before he went back to Victoria. But New Zealand called him again, and he came back to be appointed to the charge of the great Government water race — a position which he held for thirty years, while from its glory of 15 hotels, American shooting galleries and thousands of white and Chinese miners Naseby languished to its present state of somnolency.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIII, 9 October 1923, Page 3

A petition for financial assistance for the Crimean veteran James Crawford was laid before Parliament on Tuesday. Mr. Crawford lives at Naseby, is ninety four years of age, and has a wife over seventy-eight. A quarter of a century ago Mr. Crawford was informed by the Imperial Government that he would have to reside in Britain to get a soldier's pension. The couple are at present living on old age pensions.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 155, 2 July 1924, Page 4

Crimean Veteran
103rd Birthday
(By Telegraph.— Press Association.) Dunedin, This Day.

James Crawford, of Naseby, celebrated his 103rd birthday last Saturday. He is one of the few remaining Crimean and Indian Mutiny veterans, and assisted Florence Nightingale aboard a ship at Scutari.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 81, 6 April 1933, Page 12

(1) Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 83, 9 April 1934, Page 7