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[ Transcription of Obituary Notice in the Year Book of the Congregational Union of England & Wales for 1931, page 227, from a copy in Dr Williams's Library, London ]
Thomas George Crippen
. . . was born in London on November 2, 1841. The only child of his parents.
He was a descendant of a noble Huguenot family, refugees from Saumur in Anjou in the sixteenth century; one of his ancestors, Theodore Crepin, or Crespin, being minister of the Walloon (now called French) Church which still meets each Sunday in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral.
His father being in the Revenue service, his childhood was rather restless, owing to his father having several "removes" in the county.
When he was thirteen the family was transferred to Yorkshire, where, first at a boarding school at Scarborough and then at home, he spent the ensuing six years, while there making the acquaintance of the lady who many years later became his wife.
Another move took the family to Lasswade, in Scotland, from whence Mr. Crippen returned to Yorkshire as a student at Airedale College in 1861, being called to the pastorate of the church at Boston Spa (1866-70), when he had completed his college course in 1866. This was followed by a short pastorate at Fulbourn in Cambridgeshire (1866-73) [? 1870-73] , which owing to a serious breakdown in health, came to an end early in 1873.
On recovery he accepted a call to the church at Oldbury, near Birmingham (1873-83), and soon after settlement he married Miss Haggard, of Driffield and Scarborough, which marriage was one of unbroken happiness till Mrs Crippen's death with a few months of fifty years later.
The Oldbury pastorate he always spoke of as his happiest, and they were much loved by the people of the church. Circumstances made it advisable that a change should be made, and he resigned in 1883. Shortly after he received two invitations to churches in America, but owing to the delicate health of his wife declined them both, in 1884 accepting the charge of the church at Kirton in Holland, Lincs (1884-87), where he was for four years, assuming his final pastorate at Milverton (1877-96) in Somerset in 1887. Here he was for about eight years, in 1896 being asked to become librarian at the Congregational Library at the Memorial Hall, a post for which he was ideally suited, and in which he spent nearly thirty happy years, till his retirement in 1925, leaving behind him a monument of patient labour.
He was also on the Committees of the Congregational Church Hymnal and the later Hymnary.
He was a man with many interests, and wide scholarship, his lingiistic attainments being of great use in his work as librarian, as he had a reading acquaintance with French, German, Italian, Hebrew, Latin and Greek, besides a bowing acquaintance with several other tongues. His range of knowledge was extraordinary; among his friends and relatives he was jestingly known as "The Encyclopaedia".
His chief interests were the Hymnology on which stress has been laid, Congregational Church history and research work, Church history in general and Christmas carols and customs. On these subjects he contributed articles to the "Victoria County History" and also Hastings' "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," besides which he published some nine or ten volumes, chiefly of history and biography, in addition to his best-known work, "Christmas and Christmas Lore" and a number of hymns which have been printed in many hymn-books.
Mr Crippen was also one of the originators of the Congregational Historical Society, being for some years editor of their Transactions, to which he was a voluminous contributor of both signed and anonymous articles.
He left behind him a quantity of unpublished work, and much material the result of many years of research.
He passed peacefully to rest at Peckham, at the age of eighty-eight years, on December 13, 1929, leaving two daughters to mourn his loss.
A memorial service was held at the Peckham Rye Congregational Church, of which he had for some years been an honorary life deacon.
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(The Rejoice & Sing Enchiridion:edited by David Goodall; last amended 12/1/04)