When John William Craig was born on 9 March 1856, in Rokewood, Victoria, Australia, his father, Thomas Craig, was 29 and his mother, Mary Augusta Smith, was 20. He married Edith Ann Fenton on 14 March 1881, in Rokewood, Victoria, Australia. They were the parents of at least 3 sons and 3 daughters. He died in 1939, in Prahran, Victoria, Australia, at the age of 83, and was buried in Creswick, Victoria, Australia.