Russell Crowe 2006. Crowe was born on 7 April 1964 in the Wellington suburb of Strathmore Park, the son of Jocelyn Yvonne (née Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were film set caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who was named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's paternal grandfather, John Doubleday Crowe, was from Wrexham, Wales, while one of Crowe's maternal great-great-grandmothers was Māori. Crowe also has English, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Scottish, Swedish, and Welsh ancestry. He is a cousin of former New Zealand cricket captains
William Crowe (poet) William Crowe (poet) William Crowe (1745–1829) was an English poet, the son of a carpenter and educated as a foundationer at Winchester College. He went to Oxford, where he became Public Orator. Crowe was a clergyman and Rector of Alton Barnes in Wiltshire. He wrote a smooth, but somewhat conventional poem, "Lewesdon Hill" in 1789, edited William Collins's "Poems" in 1828, and lectured on poetry at the Royal Institution. His poems were collected in 1804 and 1827. William Crowe was born at Midgham, Berkshire, and baptised 13 October 1745. His father, a carpenter by trade, lived during Crowe's childhood at