Photographs from the Dr. Charles Herbert Currey papers, ca. 1914-1970

PXE 1230

fonds

ca. 1914-1970

Graphic Materials, Photographs

909094

13 photographs - gelatin silver - 35 x 25.5 cm or smaller

Charles Herbert Currey (1890-1970), educationist and legal historian, was born on 25 May 1890 at Ulmarra, New South Wales.

In 1908 Currey began a lifetime's association when he entered Teachers' College, Sydney, where K. R. Cramp thought him his best student. Currey attended the University of Sydney (B.A., 1912) on a scholarship, graduating with first-class honours in English and history, and the Frazer scholarship. He obtained his M.A. (1914) with first-class honours in history and the Nathan prize (1915) for his essay, 'British Colonial Policy from 1783 to the Present Time', a modified form of which he published in 1916.

Currey went on to study law at university; his 1917 Beauchamp prize essay, 'Industrial Arbitration in New South Wales', was seminal. He graduated LL.B. (1922) and attained Sydney's rare LL.D. (1929) by thesis, his 'Chapters on the Legal History of New South Wales' entering a previously unexplored field.

In 1912 Currey had succeeded to Cramp's Teachers' College lectureship, eventually as senior lecturer in charge of history and political science.

Having been a member (from 1925) of the Royal Australian Historical Society, he served as a councillor, contributed numerous lectures and papers, and was made a fellow in 1945.

Interested in international affairs, Currey belonged to the Sydney group of Round Table. After retiring from Teachers' College in 1951, he continued until 1961 his part-time lecturing, begun in 1933, at Sydney University Law School. His domain, English and Australian legal and constitutional history, led naturally to his major books. The Irish at Eureka (1954), The Transportation . . . of Mary Bryant (1963) and The Brothers Bent (1968) were important, if relatively small, studies. His greatest work, Sir Francis Forbes (1968), a monumental review of the early social, political and legal history of New South Wales, vindicated Chief Justice Forbes's constitutional position in his relations with Governor Darling.

At work on a life of Sir William Denison, Currey died on 2 March 1970 at Mount Wilson; his wife survived him. He willed half his residuary estate to the Public [State] Library of New South Wales 'to promote the writing of Australian history from the original sources'; his bequest endowed the library's annual C. H. Currey memorial fellowship.

Reference:
Australian Dictionary of Biography. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/currey-charles-herbert-9883 (Accessed 8 August 2012)

Photographs include:
Copy photoprint of drawing of John McDouall Stuart, explorer and surveyor, undated

A 'whim', a horse-drawn winch formerly used in mining to lift ore or water, demonstrated at the North Kaipara Agricultural Association Show, Paparoa, New Zealand. The whim was made by Mr Frances Week of Warkworth, New Zealand. Photograph taken by T.W. Collins, 1962

Photographs of Pitcairn Island, undated

Unidentified portraits, taken by photographer John Hearder, undated

Photograph of John Morley, undated. On reverse of photograph 'The Right Hon. John Morley, M.P., P.C., LL.D., was born at Blackburn, Lancashire, on the 24th of December, 1838. He was the second son of the late Jonathan Morley, Esq., a surgeon residing in that town. The boy's education was commenced at Cheltenham College, where he remained some years, the future parentally forecast for him being a very different one from that his destinies have shaped out, as not infrequently happens. From school he went in due course to Oxford, where he was scholar of Lincoln College. Here he graduated in 1859, the year of his majority; but it was not until 1873 that he took out his M.A. degree, simultaneously with being called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn.'

Photograph of John Beverley Peden, barrister and professor of law, January 1930

Photograph of possibly Dr Currey's son, undated

Forms part of the papers of Charles Herbert Currey, ca. 1914-1970 at MLMSS 2219

Copyright status:: Photographs in this collection created before 1955 are all out of copyright. Photographs created after 1955 are in copyright
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

Pic.Acc. Upgrade Project - Information transferred from Pic.Acc.4094 as part of the eRecords Project 2012-13