William Sharman Crawford
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Date: 2022-01-12

William Sharman Crawford, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10041706 / CC BY SA 3.0

#1781_births
#1861_deaths
#High_Sheriffs_of_Down
#Members_of_the_Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom_for_County_Louth_constituencies_(1801–1922)
#UK_MPs_1835–1837
#UK_MPs_1841–1847
#UK_MPs_1847–1852
#Members_of_the_Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom_for_Rochdale
#Irish_(UK)_MP_stubs
#UK_MP_for_England_stubs
William Sharman Crawford （1780–1861） was an Irish landowner who, in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, championed a democratic franchise, a devolved legislature for Ireland, and the interests of the Irish tenant farmer.
As a Radical representing first, with Daniel O'Connell's endorsement, Dundalk （1835-1837） and then, with the support of Chartists,
the English constituency of Rochdale （1841–1852） he introduced bills to codify and extend in Ireland the Ulster tenant right.
In his last electoral contest, standing on the platform of the all-Ireland Tenant Right League in 1852 he failed to unseat the Conservative and Orange party in Down, his native county.
William Sharman Crawford was born on 3 September 1780 at Moira Castle, County Down, the son of William Sharman who had been a colonel in the Irish Volunteer movement and for many years the member for Lisburn in the Irish parliament.
In 1819 he sold the family estates, which he had inherited in 1803, and moved to Dublin where he became a patron of the philanthropic Royal Dublin Society.
Eight years later he returned to Co.
Down as the heir to the estates of his brother-in-law Arthur Johnston Crawford of Crawfordsburn, whose name, Crawford, he added （by royal licence） to his own.
An advocate of Catholic relief since 1812, he publicly supported emancipation in 1829, and the following year was strenuous in his efforts as a county magistrate to disperse Orange demonstrations.
When he stood as a Westminster candidate for parliamentary reform in Down in 1831 and in Belfast in 1832, he was successfully opposed by the local As...