CURRY, William (1784-1842), of 37 Summer Hill, Dublin

The only son of a Presbyterian merchant, Curry, a lawyer, was regarded as a man of ‘honour, and probity, and high principle’. His political life was characterised by ‘manly and straightforward conduct’, which underpinned his staunch support for the Whig government.1Morning Chronicle, 24 July 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 4 Aug. 1837, 17 Sept. 1842. After a relatively brief but active period in Parliament, he became the beneficiary of ministerial patronage and resigned his seat in order to pursue his legal career.

Curry was born in county Tyrone and in early life was also known by the name of Corry.2E. Keane, P.B. Phair & T.U. Sadleir (eds.), King’s Inns admission papers (1982), 116; Morning Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1837. He was a nephew of Leonard Dobbin (1762-1844), the highly popular Liberal MP for Armagh, 1832-37.3Burke’s Landed Gentry (1871), i. 355; Freeman’s Journal, 13 July 1837. He attended Dublin University as a contemporary of Francis Blackburne (1782-1867), the future Conservative attorney-general and master of the rolls of Ireland, against whom he was said to have been ‘uniformly the successful candidate’ for academic distinctions.4Morning Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1837. He undertook legal training in the city and was called to the inner bar in July 1835.5Belfast News-letter, 17 July 1835. A ‘highly respected and able barrister’, he subsequently became agent to the Bank of Ireland in Armagh, where, as a person ‘of considerable property’, he possessed great influence.6Morning Chronicle, 23 Aug. 1837; The Assembled Commons; or, parliamentary biographer (1838), 67. His wife died in 1824 and he remained childless.7Burke’s Landed Gentry (1871), i. 355.

Of ‘liberal’ opinions, Curry appeared in March 1837 on the platform at a large public meeting at Coburg Gardens, Dublin, which expressed confidence in the Irish administration of Lord Mulgrave.8Dod MS, i. 305; R.B. Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide (1837), 153; Morning Chronicle, 18 May 1837. Upon the retirement of his uncle at the 1837 general election, Curry was brought forward on the Liberal interest for Armagh.9Morning Post, 3 July 1837. Nominated by his kinsman as a ‘Reform candidate’, he was returned with the strong support of the Catholic clergy and a portion of his fellow Presbyterians, easily seeing off a challenge from a Conservative.10Morning Chronicle, 10 July, 23 Sept. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 24 July, 3, 4 Aug. 1837.

Considered a valuable accession ‘to the ranks of Irish Reform’, Curry was a regular presence in the division lobbies, where he gave steady support to the Melbourne ministry on most issues.11Examiner, 13 Aug. 1837. After recording his first votes in favour of William Smith O’Brien’s motion on Irish election petitions, 6 Dec., and against Sir Robert Peel’s resolution on the civil pensions list, 8 Dec. 1837, he joined the important select committee which reported on fictitious voting at Irish parliamentary elections.12Examiner, 3 Dec. 1837; PP 1837-38 (308), xi. Pt. I. 1.

In February 1838 he joined the Bristol election committee and was also appointed chairman of the inquiry into the City of London election, appearing at the bar of the House to report on its deliberations.13Morning Post, 16 Feb. 1838; Hansard, 28 Feb. 1838, vol. 41, cc. 270-1; Standard, 28 Feb. 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 10 Mar. 1838. That month he supported the Irish poor law bill, but disappointed the expectations of the Freeman’s Journal by dividing against voting by ballot, 15 Feb. He voted against the motions of reprimand against Daniel O’Connell for breach of privilege, 26, 27 Feb., and divided consistently against the early termination of slave apprenticeships. He firmly backed the ministry on the questions of Canada, electoral reform and Irish tithes and municipal reform, and moved the order of the day for the further consideration of the report on the Irish court of chancery bill, 18 July 1838.14Freeman’s Journal, 21 Feb. 1838; Standard, 19 July 1838. Outside Parliament his legal career thrived and he was appointed third serjeant for Ireland in July 1838. He joined the committee of the Dublin to Armagh Railway that November.15A.R. Hart, A History of the King’s Serjeants at Law in Ireland (2000), 155; Standard, 30 Aug. 1838; Freeman’s Journal, 7 Nov. 1838.

Although a reformer, Curry was not an advocate of retrenchment, and had voted against Hume’s proposal to reduce the size of the country’s land forces, 12 Mar. 1838. He wished to see ‘efficiency first and economy after’, and in March 1839 spoke in favour of greater naval expenditure, viewing the navy’s current condition as ‘very inefficient’.16Hansard, 11 Mar. 1839, vol. 46, c. 302. Having divided against Villiers’s motions to reconsider the corn laws, 15 Mar. 1838, 19 Feb. 1839, he was one of only 20 Irish MPs to vote in favour of his motion for a committee of the whole House to consider the question, 18 Mar. 1839.17Freeman’s Journal, 22 Mar. 1839. While this apparently anomalous vote is recorded in both Hansard and the parliamentary division lists, his name was omitted from the analysis of the division published by the Spectator, 23 Mar. 1839. The following month he attended a large national meeting in Dublin in support of the Liberal government, and backed Lord John Russell’s motions on the conduct of the Irish administration, 19 Apr. 1839, and the Jamaica government bill, 6 May.18Freeman’s Journal, 12 Apr. 1839. That month he joined a deputation from the General Synod of Ulster which met Lord Rowland Hill, the commander-in-chief of the British Army, to urge the claims of Presbyterian recruits ‘to an equality of religious privileges with their Episcopalian and Roman Catholic fellow-soldiers’.19Standard, 11 May 1839. He voted for Fleetwood’s motion to equalise the English borough and county franchises, 4 June, and that month assisted with a bill to regulate Irish joint tenancies brought in by Sir Robert Ferguson, MP for Londonderry. It received its third reading in the Commons, 4 July 1839, but did not pass into law.20Morning Chronicle, 5 July 1839; PP 1839 (000), l. 353; Hansard, 4 July 1839, vol. 48, c. 1195. For the terms of the bill, see Belfast News-letter, 21 June 1839. He divided against amendments to the factory bill which would have limited the working week to 58 hours and defined adults at 21 years of age, 1 July 1839.

In February 1840 Curry spoke against the Conservatives’ attempt to raise the qualification of Irish municipal electors from £8 to £10. In a major speech against the second reading of Lord Stanley’s Irish registration bill, 26 Mar. 1840, he drew upon his attendance at several registries and elections held under the provisions of the Irish Reform Act, and not only condemned the system under which Irish voters were registered, but also criticised what he regarded as the inherent political bias of Stanley’s bill.21Caledonian Mercury, 28 Mar. 1840. Although the ‘low tone’ of his delivery apparently rendered him almost inaudible, (‘notwithstanding the frequent hints of Mr. O’Connell to speak up’), and caused his oration to be imperfectly reported by the press, the version of his speech reproduced in Hansard does provide a cogent and detailed analysis of this important political issue.22Hansard, 26 Mar. 1840, vol. 53, cc. 90-6; The Times, 27 Mar. 1840; Morning Post, 27 Mar. 1840.

Despite being passed over for the Irish solicitor-generalship in favour of a Catholic candidate in February 1839, Curry was nevertheless regarded as ‘the pet serjeant of the Whigs’, and he was nominated for a vacant mastership in chancery in March 1840.23Standard, 6, 11 Feb. 1839, 25 Mar. 1840. However, his vote was, according to the government’s critics, ‘held to be of too much value to allow that he should be actually appointed’ until after the crucial divisions had taken place on the Irish registration bill.24Standard, 12 May 1840. The post was a much coveted one as it brought an annual salary of £2,500. Curry therefore cast his last vote, (on the conduct of the Ludlow election), on 11 May, and the following day on his assumption of office a new writ was moved for Armagh.25Standard, 13, 16 May 1840; CJ, xcv. 328. He is not known to have taken the Chiltern Hundreds.

In the performance of his legal duties Curry was said to have given ‘the most perfect satisfaction’ to the body of Irish solicitors, and was ‘much esteemed by the bar’. He was widely regarded as ‘attentive, zealous, and impartial’, and ‘universally respected for his integrity’ in public and professional life. He died at the residence of his nephew, Brady Maziere, at Prospect House, Delgany, co. Wicklow, after a few days’ illness in September 1842.26Gent. Mag. (1843), i. 91; Freeman’s Journal, 17 Sept. 1842.