# Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Crake, Augustine David

​CRAKE, AUGUSTINE DAVID (1836–1890), devotional writer and story-teller, the eldest son of Jesse Crake, was born on 1 Oct. 1836 at Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, where his father kept a middle-class school. Breaking away from the strong calvinistic surroundings amid which he was brought up, Crake was baptised into the church of England in 1858, and gaining a position as a teacher was enabled to secure a degree at London University (matriculated 1862, B.A. 1864). He was ordained deacon by Bishop Wilberforce in 1865, and was appointed second master and chaplain of the church of England middle-class school of All Saints', Bloxham, near Banbury, a position which he retained from 1865 to 1878. He was senior curate of St. Michael's, Swanmore, in the Isle of Wight, 1878–9, and vicar of St. Peter's, Havenstreet, in the island from 1879 to 1885, when he effected an exchange and became vicar of Cholsey, near Wallingford. He was chaplain at Moulsford Asylum, 1885–6. At Cholsey he was beginning to gather some pupils round him, but he was cut off prematurely on 18 Jan. 1890, at the age of fifty-three. He was buried in Cholsey graveyard on 23 Jan. when many of his old Bloxham pupils followed his remains to the grave. He married in 1879 Annie, daughter of John Lucas of the Oxford Observatory.
Crake was the author of a long series of historical story books, written to illustrate the trials and triumphs of the church in Britain; these stories, in which Crake's topographical knowledge of Oxfordshire and Berkshire is used to advantage, were related orally in the first instance to the boys of Bloxham school, by whom they were much appreciated. They have been described as not unworthy successors of the similar tales of John Mason Neale [q. v.] In 1873 he published a ‘History of the Church under the Roman Empire,’ a more ambitious effort, which obtained a large circulation, being greatly in demand by students who desiderated brevity of treatment. His chief devotional books and stories were: 1. ‘Simple Prayers for School Boys,’ Oxford, 1867, 1870. 2. ‘The Bread of Life,’ Oxford, 1868; 4th ​ed. 1872. 3. ‘Simple Prayers’ 1870. 4. ‘Aemilius: a Tale of the Decian and Valerian Persecutions,’ 1871. 5. ‘Evanus: a Tale of the Days of Constantine the Great,’ 1872, 1885. 6. ‘The Garden of Life’ (a devotional primer), Oxford, 1873. 7. ‘Edwy the Fair; or, the First Chronicle of Aescendune,’ 1874; 5th ed. 1885. 8. ‘Alfgar the Dane’ (a sequel to 7), 1874. 9. ‘The Camp on the Severn,’ 1875. 10. ‘The Andreds-Weald’ (a tale of the Norman Conquest), 1877. 11. ‘The Rival Heirs,’ 1882. 12. ‘Fairleigh Hall’ (great rebellion in Oxfordshire), 1882. 13. ‘The Last Abbot of Glastonbury,’ 1884. 14. ‘The Victor's Laurel,’ 1885. 15. ‘The Doomed City’ (temp. St. Augustine), 1885. 16. ‘The House of Walderne,’ 1886. 17. ‘Brian FitzCount, a Story of Wallingford Castle,’ 1887. 18. ‘Yule Log Stories,’ 1887. 19. ‘Stories from Old English History,’ 1887. 20. ‘The Heir of Treherne.’
He edited ‘Offices for the Hours of Prime, Sext, and Compline; with special Antiphons and Chapters for the Seasons of the Church,’ Oxford, 1871, 8vo. Crake was moreover joint-editor with Joseph Oldknow of the ‘Priest's Book of Private Devotion’ (Oxford, 1872, numerous editions).
[Guardian, 29 Jan. 1890; Church Times, 24 Jan. 1890; Athenæum, 1890, i. 150; Crockford's Clerical Directory; Allibone's Dict. of English Literature; Crake's Works.]
T. S.