What remains, however, is that in a life crammed with incident, this was a man who did a lot more good than harm. Whether or not Crab was Carroll’s Hatter, or as Chambers’ Book Of Days had it, “simply insane”, is open to endless conjecture. His tomb in St Dunstan’s churchyard in Stepney includes the following: Through good and ill reports he past, He died in Bethnal Green at the age of 59.īy this time, he seems to have enjoyed a certain amount of public affection. ![]() There followed a quiet period in Crab’s life. Indeed, among his published works (which included an attack on the Quakers) is a 1657 tract entitled Dragon’sĭownfall, in which he declared that the sabbath had been turned into an idol. Not only was he branded a witch, he was an anti-sabbatarian, not observing Sunday as a non-working day. ![]() His austere behaviour did not go unnoticed and having developed a neat line in foretelling the future he was variously accused of witchcraft by Thomas Godboult, the vicar of Uxbridge, imprisoned four times, cudgelled, whipped and put in the stocks. Calling himself The English Hermit: The Wonder Of The Age, he then decanted to a hut in Ickenham, near Uxbridge, dressed in sackcloth and subsisted on a diet of dock leaves and grass.Īn avowed pacifist, he later moved to Bethnal Green, where he boasted that he could live on three farthings a week. However, in 1651, Crab sold the Chesham business and gave all his money to the poor. ![]() Despite his somewhat “relaxed” attitude to customers, the millinery enterprise proved to be a lucrative one and it is said that he earned so much as a hatter he bought an estate worth £20 per year and became one of the richest men
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