Curr, Joseph, priest, controversialist, and martyr of charity, b. at Sheffield, England, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century; d. at Leeds, 29 June, 1847. He was educated at Crook Hall, County Durham, and Ushaw College, was ordained a priest and served for some years the missions in Rook Street and Granby Row, Manchester, where he engaged in controversy with the Protestant Bible Association. Later, after a retirement to La Trappe in France, he returned to Ushaw, going thence to Callaly, Northumberland. About 1840 he was at St. Albans, Blackburn, with Dr. Sharples, until the latter was consecrated Bishop of Samaria partibus. Father Curr then went to Whitby, remaining there until about 1846, when he was appointed to Sheffield. During the typhus fever epidemic of 1847, Leeds was almost bereft of priests; Father Curr volunteered for service there, and fell a victim to the disease. His principal works are: “The Instructor’s Assistant”, long used in Manchester Sunday Schools; “Visits to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Blessed Virgin”, from the Italian of Liguori (Manchester); “Spiritual Retreat”, adapted from Bourdaloue; “Familiar Instructions in Catholic Faith and Morality” (Manchester, 1827). There remain two sermons, also several pamphlets and newspaper letters of a controversial character.
Orthodox Journal (1835), 36, 40; Gillow, Bibl. Dict. of Eng. Cath., I, 608.
Patrick Ryan.