Crookshank, Charles Henry (1836–1915), methodist minister and historian, was born 29 January 1836 at Cayaga, Upper Canada, younger son of Alexander Crookshank – a prominent solicitor and son of the judge Alexander Crookshank (qv) (d. 1813) – and of his wife Jane Crookshank. In 1841, after a six-week sea voyage during which the vessel almost sank, the family settled in Belfast, where his father died (1845), aged 69. Charles was educated at the Blue Coat School, Dublin, and in QCC, from which he graduated (1859). He became a methodist minister; served in Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, in Antrim town, and in the Cork and Limerick areas, in both of which he acted as chairman; and for eighteen years was treasurer of the Supernumerary Ministers and Ministers' Widows Fund. In 1898 he was elected one of the Legal Hundred, and in 1899 was president of the methodist church in Ireland and vice-president of the Irish conference. Crookshank was Irish representative to the general conference of the methodist episcopalian church in Los Angeles in 1903, but is best known for his works on the history of methodism in Ireland, notably A methodist pioneer (1881), Memorable women in Irish methodism (1883), and The history of methodism in Ireland (3 vols, 1885–6). He helped edit John Wesley's Journals and edited the Christian Advocate from 1888 to 1893. Crookshank died in Belfast 28 May 1915, and was buried in Muckamore, Co. Antrim.
He married first (11 June 1868) Annie Howard (d. 1869, aged 25) of Passage West, Co. Cork. He married secondly (4 July 1871) Annie McElwaine (d. 1883) of Coleraine; they had a son, and two daughters, one of whom, Jane, died (1896) of typhoid fever caught from a child she was nursing. He married thirdly (1907) Jane Sullivan of Bandon, Co. Cork. His son also became a methodist minister.