Matthew Curtis (1807–1887) was an industrialist and civic leader in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. He was
Mayor of Manchester
This is a list of the Lord Mayors of the City of Manchester in the North West of England. Not to be confused with the Directly elected Greater Manchester Mayor.
The Current and 124th Lord Mayor is Cllr Donna Ludford, Labour who has served Sin ...
three times.
Born in Manchester in 1807, Curtis was initially apprenticed to the firm of
Joseph Chessborough Dyer, subsequently becoming foreman, and then succeeding in 1836 to the ownership of Dyer's business, which became Curtis, Parr & Walton. By trade, Curtis was a wire-card manufacturer and a machine-maker. He was a partner in two businesses: Curtis, Parr & Walton, wire-card makers (with
James Walton), and Parr, Curtis & Madely, machine-makers. These firms were involved in the manufacture of equipment for spinning
cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...
, the former in the production of
Dyer's Frame and the latter producing
Smith & Orr's Self-Acting Mule. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Curtis's firms were the largest manufacturers of cotton-spinning machinery in Britain.
In December 1875, during his second term as Mayor of Manchester, Curtis put in place the copper ball on the summit of the Albert Square tower of the new
Manchester Town Hall
Manchester Town Hall is a Victorian, Neo-gothic municipal building in Manchester, England. It is the ceremonial headquarters of Manchester City Council and houses a number of local government departments. The building faces Albert Square to th ...
, which was nearing its completion in 1877. Curtis was a council member of the
Manchester Anti-Corn Law Association and a founding director of the
Manchester Athenaeum
The Athenaeum in Princess Street Manchester, England, now part of Manchester Art Gallery, was originally a club built for the Manchester Athenaeum, a society for the "advancement and diffusion of knowledge", in 1837. The society, founded in 18 ...
. He resided at Thornfield in
Heaton Mersey, south of the city, and died on 9 June 1887 or 11 June 1887, during his third term as Mayor.
Marriages and children
He married twice:
*Firstly to Amelia Weaver (1810–1877), daughter of Richard Weaver of Tarvin in Cheshire, by whom he had 2 sons and 1 daughter, including:
**John Curtis (1836–1878), eldest son, who predeceased his father, leaving 3 sons including the youngest Walter Septimus Curtis (born 1871) lord of the
manor of Denbury in Devon, a barrister of
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...
. One of Walter's daughters was
Lettice Curtis (1915-2014) an aviator, flight test engineer, air racing pilot, and sportswoman.
**Richard Curtis, 2nd son;
*Secondly he married Charlotte Laughton (1824–1918), 5th daughter of Edmund Laughton of Tickhill, Yorkshire.
The lych gate (1927) of St John's Church, Heaton Mersey carries an inscription, much faded, dedicated to Curtis and other, later members of the Curtis family.
[C. Hartwell, ''Lancashire: Manchester and the South East'', Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England. (Yale University Press, 2004) . p. 230]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Curtis, Matthew
1807 births
1887 deaths
Mayors of Manchester
English industrialists
19th-century English businesspeople