CREVIER, JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS (1693-1765), French author, was born at Paris, where his father was a printer. He studied under Rollin and held the professorship of rhetoric in the college of Beauvais for twenty years. He completed Rollin’s Histoire romaine by the addition of six volumes (1750-1756); he also published two editions of Livy, with notes; L’Histoire des empereurs des Romains, jusqu’à Constantin (1749); Histoire de l’Université de Paris, and a Rhétorique françoise, which enjoyed much popularity.
CREVILLENTE, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Alicante, and on the Murcia-Alicante railway. Pop. (1900) 10,726. Crevillente is a picturesque old town built among the eastern foothills of the Sierra de Crevillente. Its flat-roofed Moorish houses are enclosed by gardens of cactus, dwarf palm, orange and other subtropical plants, interspersed with masses of rock. The surrounding country, though naturally sterile, is irrigated from two adjacent springs, which differ in temperature by no less than 25° F. The district is famous for its melons, and also produces wine, olives, wheat and esparto grass. Local industries include the manufacture of coarse cloth, esparto fabrics, oil and flour.
CREW, NATHANIEL CREW, 3rd Baron (1633-1721), bishop of Durham, was a son of John Crew (1598-1679), who was created Baron Crew of Stene in 1661, and a grandson of Sir Thomas Crew (1565-1634), speaker of the House of Commons. Born on the 31st of January 1633, Nathaniel was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford, and was appointed rector of the college in 1668. He became dean and precentor of Chichester in 1669, clerk of the closet to Charles II. shortly afterwards, bishop of Oxford in 1671, and bishop of Durham in 1674. He owed his rapid preferment to James, then duke of York, whose favour he had gained by conniving at the duke’s leanings to the Roman Church. After the accession of James II. Crew received the deanery of the Chapel Royal. He served in 1686 on the revived ecclesiastical commission which suspended Compton, bishop of London, and then shared the administration of the see of London with Sprat, bishop of Rochester. In 1687 he was a member of another ecclesiastical commission, which suspended the vice-chancellor of the university of Cambridge for refusing the degree of M.A. to a monk who would not take the customary oath. On the decline of James’s power Crew dissociated himself from the court, and made a bid for the favour of the new government by voting for the motion that James had abdicated. He was excepted from the general pardon of 1690, but afterwards was allowed to retain his see. He left large estates to be devoted to charitable ends, and his benefaction to Lincoln College and to Oxford University is commemorated in the annual Crewian oration. In 1697 Crew succeeded his brother Thomas as 3rd Baron Crew, He died on the 18th of September 1721, when the barony became extinct.
CREW (sometimes explained as a sea term of Scandinavian origin, cf. O. Icel. krú, a swarm or crowd, but now regarded as a shortened form of accrue, accrewe, used in the 16th century in the sense of a reinforcement, O. Fr. acreue, from accroître, to grow, increase), a band or body of men associated for a definite purpose, a gang who jointly carry out a particular piece of work, and especially those who man a ship, exclusive of the captain, and sometimes also of the officers.
CREWE, ROBERT OFFLEY ASHBURTON CREWE-MILNES, 1st Earl of (1858- ), English statesman and writer, was born on the 12th of January 1858, being the son of Lord Houghton (q.v.), and was educated at Harrow and Trinity, Cambridge. In 1880 he married Sibyl Marcia Graham, who died in 1887, leaving him with two daughters. He inherited his father’s literary tastes, and published Stray Verses in 1890, besides other miscellaneous literary work. A Liberal in politics, he became private secretary to Lord Granville when secretary of state for foreign affairs (1883-1884), and in 1886 was made a lord-in-waiting. In the Liberal administration of 1892-1895 he was lord-lieutenant for Ireland, having Mr John Morley as chief secretary. In 1895 he was created 1st earl of Crewe, his maternal grandfather, the 2nd Baron Crewe, having left him his heir. In 1899 he married Lady Margaret Primrose, daughter of the 5th earl of Rosebery. In 1905 he became lord president of the council in the Liberal government; and in 1908, in Mr Asquith’s cabinet, he became secretary of state for the colonies and Liberal leader in the House of Lords.