This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Linde Lunney. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 31 May 1841, Ireland
Died: 30 December 1915
Country most active: France
Also known as: Emily Johnstone
Crawford, Emily (1841–1915), journalist, was born 31 May 1841, probably in Dublin, daughter of Andrew Johnstone, landowner, of Corboy, Co. Longford, and Grace Johnstone, an American. She was educated at home. After her father’s financial difficulties and death, she went (1857) with her mother to Paris, where she attended the Sorbonne. A letter to a friend was seen by a magazine editor, and she was asked to write regularly for the London Morning Star. In her contributions to this and other papers, she developed a new approach to journalism and an unconventional and epigrammatic style which were immediately popular. She married (1864) George M. Crawford, Paris correspondent of the Daily News, and the two collaborated in sending dispatches to London papers, notably during the Franco–German war of 1870–71. They sent their young children to safety and then at great risk travelled to Tours, where they shared the privations and dangers of the troops for several months. In 1871 Emily Crawford obtained interviews with the leaders of the Commune in Paris; in May she was granted unique access to a debate at Versailles in which the French government was defeated. Lacking writing material, she memorised the proceedings and met her husband in a café at midnight; the two worked all night and their report reached the Daily News a full day before any rival’s. Her friend the French statesman Adolphe Thiers allowed her to use his private telegraph to send dispatches; she wrote assessments of his career at his death (1877). She wrote on varied subjects for many English and American reviews, including the New York Tribune and Truth. When her husband died (1885) after a wasp-sting on an artery, Emily Crawford took over as the Daily News Paris correspondent until 1907. She corresponded with Matthew Arnold on higher education; her book Victoria, queen and writer appeared in 1903; she was an honorary member of the Cobden Club, and was nominated for the Légion d’honneur, but preferred that her son Robert should receive it instead. She died 30 December 1915 in Bristol.