(c.1689 - 1749), a yr. s. of Patrick Crowe of Ashington, Northumb.; Queen's Oxf. 1707; vicar of Gilling, Yorks, 1742.
c.1716 - 29 Leghorn ( - 20 Feb. 1729)
1733 - 4 Florence (Mar. - Apr. 1733), Venice (by 22 May), Florence (Jun.), Rome (12 Nov. 1733 - 12 Mar. 1734), Venice, Padua (12 Jun.), Vicenza (Jun.), Verona (Jun.), Mantua
On 16 June 1716 Christopher Crowe wrote from Leghorn to Dr White Kennett, then Dean of Peterborough, that he 'should be very glad [the chaplaincy at Leghorn] might fall to my brother Benjamin's share who has been bred up in Queen's Colledge in Oxford that he might have an opportunity to see the world'.1 Benjamin Crowe was duly appointed chaplain to the British Factory at Leghorn.
In 1721 (probably November) Edward Wright saw in the house of Mr Crow 'then the chaplain of the factory', a fine collection of drawings, antique intaglio's, cameo's, and other curiosities. They were (I think) the collection of a late viceroy of Naples'.2 It may have been Benjamin (as opposed to his brother) who in July 1722 visited the Uffizi with Richard Rawlinson and who in September, with Henry Davenant and Castres, left Florence for Leghorn.3 Rawlinson referred specifically to 'the Revd.Mr Crow the Chaplain' when visiting the Leghorn consulate in July 1722: 'an upper room is sett apart for a chapell, in which are benches, a reading desk and a pulpit, here I heard an admirable discourse from the Revd Mr Crow the Chaplain'. Rawlinson had time to see Crowe's 'small and curious' collection of cameos and intaglios, though not his prints and drawings.4
The chaplain's salary (£;200 p.a. in 1705) was paid from a small levy on goods brought to Leghorn in British ships and from c.1725 this was a source of friction among the merchants. From 1727 to 1729 Crowe was acting as an unpaid chaplain;5 on 20 February 1729, 'not finding sufficient encouragement to continue the exercise of his Holy Function amongst us', he returned to England.6
Crowe returned to Italy in 1733 - 4 as travelling tutor to Sir Hugh Smithson (later 1st Duke of Northumberland), see Smithson. They were together in Florence, Venice and Rome, but in June 1734 Crowe and Richard Pococke visited Padua from Venice, apparently without Smithson.7 Crowe subsequently corresponded for many years with Alessandro Galilei in Florence.8
1. Lansd.1041, ff.298 - 9. 2. E. Wright, Observations in France and Italy 1720 - 2, [1764 ed.], 378. 3. Rawlinson jnl.MSS (1 Jul., 11 Oct. 1722). 4. Ibid. (2, 5 Jul. 1722). 5. RBF notes from SP 98/22, 29 and 30. 6. SP 98/26 (Skinner, 20 Feb. 1729). 7. Pococke letters MSS, f.15 (13 Jun. 1734). 8. CL, 4 Aug. 1983, 279.