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Major William Claude David Crombie was The Shipping Federation's labour manager. A farmer from Saskatchewan, member of the 27th Light Horse based in Moose Jaw, and a veteran of the Great War, Crombie was hired by waterfront employers right after the war to look after 'protection and protective measures' during the tumultuous days of the national labour revolt. During the 1923 strike, he was the personal driver and bodyguard for several members of the Shipping Federation and, at the tail end of the fifty-three day conflict, 'took over the employment end of the game' as despatcher. A year later he was promoted to labour manager, a position that paid approximately $350 per month, which was about three times what the highest-earning longshoreman earned. 'Industrially the Federation is attempting to work along new lines and I must give the members of the Federation all credit in backing up my proposals and schemes in many cases,' Crombie wrote to a friend in Regina shortly after assuming his new job, 'cases| which may appear to some of the old employers of labor unusual and unconservative.' Although the composition of the Shipping Federation's board of directors changed constantly over the course of the 1920s and 1930s, Crombie remained labour manager throughout this entire period. As a consequence, he played a pivotal role in the organization's shift to welfare capitalism and decasualization. Some considered him the 'King Bee of the Waterfront,' a nick name that captured his heightened stature on the job [after the 1923 strike. 'Major Crombie was the main guy,' longshoreman Harry Walters recollected. 'You had to go to him if you wanted in the union.' Andrew Parnaby, Citizen docker: making a new deal on the Vancouver waterfront, 1919-1939, p. 20.

Mr. W. D. CROMBIE

Mr. William David Crombie, Maranthona, Longreach, died in Brisbane on February 24, aged 66.

A popular grazier of the Central-west for many years, the late Mr. Crombie commenced his pastoral life as a jackeroo on Greenhills and Kensington Downs, which were owned by his relatives. In 1911 he and his three sisters took up Maranthona, a resumption of Greenhills, which had been unselected for some time. Later he acquired the sole rights of the property, and was active in its management until a few months ago.
Mr. Crombie was a member of Longreach Shire Council for 20 years, and in his work for the community was as efficient as he was in the management of his own property. In 1913 he married Miss Janet Wilma Macdonald, of Brisbane, who with two sons and two daughters survives him. The sons are Mr. Mac (Bimerah, Longreach) and Dr. A. Crombie, Ph.D., a research scientist at Cambridge University. The daughters are Mrs. Nancy Macdonald (Peachester) and Mrs. Margaret Bell (Brisbane). Queensland Country Life, 10 March 1949.³

Engaged in building vessels with James Church, under the firm name of Church & Crooker, and afterward built with his brother, William D., under the firm name of C. & W. D. Crooker, until 1853, when he retired from the activities of business.
He was a Republican and a staunch supporter of his party.²

"Mrs. Emma D. Sewall, widow of Hon. Arthur Sewall, died Monday morning at her summer home at Small Point where her husband died Sept. 5, 1900. She was stricken Sunday and never regained consciousness. Mrs. Sewall was born in Bath, a daughter of Charles Crooker, Esq., one of the early Bath shipbuilders and was married to Mr. Sewall in 1859. She leaves two sons, Hon. Harold M. Sewall and William D. Sewall, both of Bath."

As her great-great-grand-daughter Abbie Sewall noted in a July 1988 article on her grandmother in Down East Magazine there is no indication of her success as a photographer. She took up the art as an adult of forty-eight and did very well with it. She exhibited her work in Paris and was the first women to be invited to join the Boston Camera Club, but virtually stopped photographing with her husband's death. She resigned from the Club and led a largely reclusive life until her death nineteen years later.⁶

Message Through Time: The Photographs of Emma D. Sewall 1836-1919 by Abbie Sewall, The Harpswell Press, Gardiner, Maine: 1989.

Death Ends Career of Rev. Dr. Crosby

Dr. Arthur Crosby, Headmaster of Mt. Tamalpais Military Academy, whose life for the past thirty years has been identified with the best interests of San Rafael died, suddenly Tuesday morning at Bolinas. He had been a sufferer from ill health for some time and under the care of a physician.

The news of the sad event caused sorrow here to every person who knew Dr. Crosby. But it was more poignant to those who had been intimate with him and knew him best.

Dr. Crosby was born in Brooklyn, New York, 68 years ago. He was graduated from Rutgers College, and a short time later began his career as a minister of the gospel. He came to San Rafael about 1885 to occupy the pulpit of t he Presbyterian church. In 1892 he resigned the pastorship to take charge of the Mt. Tamalpais Miliytary Academy, the institution of which he was the founder. Under his personal supervision the academy has attained to a rank that redounds to the honor of the founder. Dr. Crosby was a good man; he had his friends in every walk of life, and his place in this community will be hard to fill. The Crosby family was related to the Roosevelt and Harriman families. Before the death of E. H. Harriman, the great railroad builder many times had been a guest of Dr. Crosby. Dr. Crosby also was related to the eminent divine and publicist, Rev. Horace Crosby, deceased, of New York.

The funeral will be held this afternoon at 3:30 o’clock at the Presbyterian church. The service will be conducted by Rev. Lynn T. White, a close personal friend of Dr. Crosby.

Dr. Crosby was the husband of Mrs. Susanna Rodger Crosby, and the father of Mrs. Oscar T. Sewall, of Englewood, N.J; Louise and William Floyd Crosby of New York, and Harman Crosby of San Rafael. Marin Journal, August 26, 1915.³