Item 41 - Correspondence : Edward Curr

George Washington Walker (1800-1859), Quaker, shopkeeper and humanitarian, was born on 19 March 1800 in London, the twenty-first child of John Walker (1726-1821) by his second wife, Elizabeth, née Ridley. Because of the death of his mother and the absence of his aged father engaged in the saddle trade in Paris, he was brought up by his grandmother in Newcastle. He was educated by a Wesleyan schoolmaster near Barnard Castle, and apprenticed in 1814 to a linen draper. Impressed by the probity and wisdom of his Quaker employers and James Backhouse of York, a leading Quaker minister, he left the Unitarian persuasion of his family in 1827 and became a member of the Society of Friends. The next year he formed the first Temperance Society in Newcastle.
For more information see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/walker-george-washington-2764

Edward Curr (1798-1850), company manager, was born on 1 July 1798 at Bellevue House, Sheffield, England, the third son of John Curr, a civil engineer who managed the estate and coal-mines of the Duke of Norfolk. Curr sailed with his wife Elizabeth (Micklethwait) in the Claudine and arrived in Hobart Town in February 1820. He was granted 1500 acres (607 ha) at Cross Marsh. In 1884 he published ' Account of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land, Principally Designed for the Use of Emigrants". In 1824 he was appointed was chief agent/manager of the Van Diemen's Land Company, establishing the company's base at Circular Head in September 1826. For more information see: http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/curr-edward-1944