Crab, Roger (c. 1621–1680)

English hermit. He practised great austerity and was accused of witchcraft, imprisoned, cudgelled, and put in the stocks. He published The English Hermite 1655, Dagon's Downfall 1657, and tracts against the Quakers, and died in Bethnal Green.

Crab served in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War 1642–49 and was wounded in the head. In 1651 he sold his business in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, as a ‘haberdasher of hats’ and built a hut to retire to as a hermit.