Summary:
The death took place on October 21 of Alfred Ernest Crawley, who was well known as the author of several works on anthropological matters. He was born in 1869, the son of the Rev. Samuel Crawley, Rector of Oddington, Oxford, was educated at Sedbergh and Cambridge, and entered the scholastic profession; he abandoned this for journalism in 1908. An adept in several branches of sport, his works on tennis and ball games are of recognised authority. In anthropology, besides contributing to the journals of several scientific societies, to NATURE, and to Hastings's “Dictionary of Religion and Ethics,” he was the author of three books of some importance—“The Mystic Rose, a Study of Primitive Marriage,” published in 1902; “The Tree of Life, a Study of Religion,” published in 1905, and “The Idea of the Soul,” which appeared in 1909. Of. these “The Mystic Rose” was the best known-it undoubtedly exercised no inconsiderable influence on the anthropological thought of that day, especially in so far as it emphasised the importance of marriage ceremonies, a side of the subject to which Westermarck had then paid too little attention in his monumental study of human marriage.