Herbert Howard Crawford (March 10, 1878 – January 27, 1946) was a Strathcona businessman and a provincial level politician in

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada. He served as a Conservative MLA from 1913 to 1921.

Biography

He was born in

Brampton, Ontario Brampton is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario, and the regional seat of the Regional Municipality of Peel. It is part of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#L ...

. He moved to Strathcona in 1900. One of his four sisters, Mary Crawford, also came west. An Edmonton high school teacher and unionist, she was a kingpin in Edmonton's progressive movement, running for political office again and again albeit unsuccessfully. After a couple years farming, Herbert Crawford ran a small but successful factory and auctioneer house in the Crawford Block at 8228 103rd Street, which is still standing today. Crawford involved himself in Edmonton municipal politics, running to be public school board trustee in the

December 1912 Edmonton Municipal Election The second of two 1912 municipal elections was held December 9, 1912 to elect a mayor and five aldermen to sit on Edmonton City Council and three trustees to sit on each of the public and separate school boards. There were, at the time, ten alderme ...

. He was unsuccessful in his bid to win a seat, placing 6th out of 7 candidates (only three were elected). Less than a year later in the

1913 Alberta general election The 1913 Alberta general election was held in March 1913. The writ was dropped on 25 March 1913 and election day was held 17 April 1913 to elect 56 members to the 3rd Alberta Legislature. Elections in two northern districts took place on 30 July ...

Crawford ran in the new

Edmonton South Edmonton South was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the House of Commons of Canada from 1979 to 1988. This riding was created in 1976 from parts of Edmonton West and Pembina ridings. It was abolished in ...

against former premier

Alexander Cameron Rutherford Alexander Cameron Rutherford (February 2, 1857 – June 11, 1941) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the first premier of Alberta from 1905 to 1910. Born in Ormond, Canada West, he studied and practiced law in Ottawa before h ...

. In a two-way race, Crawford defeated Rutherford by a substantial margin. The result was not expected. When he ran for re-election in the

1917 Alberta general election The 1917 Alberta general election was held on 7 June 1917 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The Liberals won a fourth term in office, defeating the Conservative Party of Edward Michener. Because of World War I, eleven Me ...

. Crawford increased his margin of victory. Edmonton South was abolished prior to the

1921 Alberta general election The 1921 Alberta general election was held on July 18, 1921, to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly. The Liberal government is replaced by the United Farmers of Alberta. It was one of only five times that Alberta has changed gov ...

as the three Edmonton ridings were amalgamated into a city-wide constituency, electing five members under the

block voting Block or bloc voting refers to a class of electoral systems where multiple candidates are elected simultaneously. They do not guarantee minority representation and allow a group of voters (a voting bloc) to ensure that only their preferred candi ...

system. Crawford was unsuccessful, finishing 9th out of the field of 26 candidates, only five Liberals being elected. He attempted to regain a seat in the

1926 Alberta general election The 1926 Alberta general election was held on June 28, 1926, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. The United Farmers of Alberta government that had first been elected in 1921 was re-elected, taking a majority of the seats in ...

but again was substantially defeated, this time under the new

Single Transferable Vote The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vot ...

election system. Two more-popular Conservatives were elected instead. He died at his home in Edmonton on January 27, 1946.

References

External links

Alberta Legislature Membership Listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crawford, Herbert 1946 deaths 1878 births Politicians from Brampton Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta MLAs 20th-century members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta