Henry Thomas Crawley was born in Bethnal Green, Middlesex on Friday, 20th April 1883, the eldest son and child born to Henry Thomas Crawley and Maria Susannah Brewster. He had six siblings Maria Matilda, Robert, Elizabeth, Caroline Sarah, Emma (Emily) Sarah, George and Frank.  His brother Robert died in 1886 aged one. Henry attended nearby Globe Road School in Bethnal Green which he left in 1896 when he went to work in the brush making trade, and trained as a "Bone Sawyer and Cutter". It was this work which eventually brought him to Hemel Hempstead, when he came to work at G. B. Kent & Sons River Gade brush works in Apsley and moved into "Ivy Cottage" on Durrants Hill with the Howell family.

Shortly after the outbreak of war on the 14th September 1914, Henry went to the recruiting office at 208 Mare Street, Hackney, where he attested and enlisted with the Hampshire Regiment. He was thirty-one years old and much taller than average at 5 feet 11½ inches and weighing in at 12st exactly. He went to train in Winchester before he was posted to the 11th (Service) Battalion (Pioneers) Hampshire Regiment and it seems both his age and experience proved valuable to his regiment. Beginning on the 23rd September 1914, Henry rose rapidly through the ranks, until he was promoted Regimental Serjeant Major on the 5th July 1916.

He had gone to France in December 1915 and during the next twelve months the Hampshires were deployed in the Somme Valley. Henry saw his first serious action in September in the Battle of Guillemont followed almost immediately by the Battle of Cinchy, both battles part of the Somme offensive as it entered its final phase. Shortly afterwards Henry successfully applied for a commission and he returned to England in late December 1916. On the 7th February 1917, he transferred to the 10th Officer Cadet Battalion and went to Gailes Camp, two miles north of Troon in Ayrshire, to start his officer training. Henry spent four months there before he was promoted 2nd Lieutenant. He was posted briefly to the 6th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment at Harwich garrison, before going overseas again to take up his new duties with the 4th Battalion Worcestershires in July 1917.

He joined his Battalion in Belgium and in August saw action again in the Battle of Langemarck, part of the Third Battle of Ypres. Two months later in the Battle of Broodseinde, he was one of five officers wounded on the 9th October, when he was hit in the thigh by shrapnel. This injury resulted in admission to the 10th Red Cross Hospital at Le Treport in France and from there, he wrote to his colleagues at G. B. Kents to describe the circumstances of his wounding. His brief letter was published in the Hemel Gazette. Henry may well have had a visit home while he convalesced, as his return to his regiment was confirmed by an entry in the 4th Battalion War Diaries on the 26th April 1918. Just ten days after his return to the front Henry was wounded when he was hit by retaliatory enemy machine gun fire, following a raid by the 86th Brigade. He was immediately taken out of the line for treatment but sadly, to no avail.

Henry died from his wounds at 89th Field Ambulance on Monday, 6th May 1918.

He was commemorated on the war memorial plaques in St Mary’s Church, Apsley End and at G. B. Kent & Sons Ltd. where he had worked.

Henry is Remembered with Honour in the Cinq Rues British Cemetery, Hazebrouck, Nord, France, where he is interred in Grave C.14. The inscription on his headstone, requested by his father Henry, reads: “HERE IS A LINK DEATH CANNOT SEVER LOVE AND REMEMBRANCE LAST FOR EVER”

He was 35 years old when he died.

Henry was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.