Raikes Currie (15 April 1801 – 16 October 1881) was Member of Parliament (MP) for Northampton from 1837 to 1857. He was a partner of the bank Curries & Co, along with his father, Isaac Currie, in Cornhill, City of London, and had several interests in the newly developing colony of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. He restored

Minley Manor Minley Manor is a Grade II* listed country manor house, located within a Grade II registered garden, built in the French Gothic style by Henry Clutton in the 1860s with further additions in the 1880s. The Manor is situated 2 miles north of juncti ...

and made substantial improvements to the estate, work which was continued by his son and grandson. The family bank was connected to slavery in the

British West Indies The British West Indies (BWI) were colonized British territories in the West Indies: Anguilla, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Montserrat, the British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grena ...

and contributed some £9,000 (possibly as much as £50,000) to the creation of

in 1836.

Family

His father, Isaac Currie (1760–1843), of Bush Hill, Middlesex, England, was a senior partner of the bank Curries & Co. and the son of William Currie, Distiller and Banker, of Gatton Park, Surrey. Currie and his sons were financially connected to slavery and benefited from compensation awarded to slaveholders upon the emancipation of slavery in the 1830s. The Curries belonged to an old Scottish family descended directly from the Curries of Duns, Berwickshire. His mother, Mary Anne Raikes, was the daughter of William Raikes and granddaughter of

Robert Raikes Robert Raikes ("the Younger") (14 September 1736 – 5 April 1811) was an English philanthropist and Anglican layman. He was educated at The Crypt School Gloucester. He was noted for his promotion of Sunday schools. Family Raikes was born at ...

, printer and newspaper proprietor. Her uncles included

Thomas Raikes Thomas Raikes ("the Elder") (28 March 1741 – 29 December 1813) was a British merchant particularly trading from London with Russia, a banker and newspaper proprietor. Notably, he was Governor of the Bank of England during the 1797 currency c ...

Governor of the Bank of England The governor of the Bank of England is the most senior position in the Bank of England. It is nominally a civil service post, but the appointment tends to be from within the bank, with the incumbent grooming their successor. The governor of the Ba ...

from 1797 to 1799 and personal friend of

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

, the leader of the campaign against the slave trade; and

, the founder of

Sunday schools A Sunday school is an educational institution, usually (but not always) Christian in character. Other religions including Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism have also organised Sunday schools in their temples and mosques, particularly in the West. Su ...

. Her brother Job Mathew Raikes was married to Charlotte Bayly, daughter of Nathaniel Bayly, MP, and colonial plantation owner in Jamaica. On 28 June 1825 Raikes Currie married the Hon. Laura Sophia Wodehouse,Raikes Currie
NatWest Group, 2020. Retrieved 24 December 2020. with whom he had four sons and two daughters.''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', contribution by John Powell
Raikes Currie
/ref> She was a daughter of

John Wodehouse, 2nd Baron Wodehouse John Wodehouse, 2nd Baron Wodehouse (11 January 1771 – 31 May 1846), styled The Honourable John Wodehouse from 1797 to 1834, was a British peer and Member of Parliament. Background Wodehouse was the eldest son of John Wodehouse, 1st Baron Wod ...

of Kimberley, and Sophia Berkeley. Their four sons were George Wodehouse Currie (1826–), Bertram Raikes Wodehouse Currie (1827–1896), the Reverend Maynard Wodehouse Currie (1829–1887) and Philip Henry Wodehouse Currie (1834–1908), 1st Baron Currie of Hawley. William Currie of East Horsley, Member of Parliament for Gatton, was his uncle and Vice-Admiral

Mark John Currie Captain Mark John Currie RN (later Vice-Admiral) played a significant role in the exploration of Australia and the foundation of the Swan River Colony, later named Western Australia. He explored areas in New South Wales, after which he returned ...

and Sir Frederick Currie were his cousins.

Minley Manor

Currie's home was at

, near

Blackwater and Hawley Blackwater and Hawley is a civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England, on the border with Surrey. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 5,849, reducing to 4,473 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes Minley, Blackwa ...

, in Hampshire, England. He bought the land in 1846 and, as the manor house and the estate needed attention, commissioned

Henry Clutton Henry Clutton (19 March 1819 – 27 June 1893)Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Photograph , http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GScid=1366392&GRid=12186732&PIgrid=12186732&PIcrid=1366392&PIpi=3000944& was an English arc ...

to design a new house, which was built between 1858 and 1860. During the next three years attention turned to the estate, with the creation of formal gardens around the house and a kitchen garden. The remainder was landscaped as pleasure gardens by F W Meyer, working with the horticulturists Veitch & Sons of Exeter. On Raikes' death, his son Bertram continued the development, employing Messrs Veitch to lay out a Winter Garden and extensions to the pleasure gardens, which included Hawley Lake. Grandson Laurence Currie built a water tower, created a new complex of walled gardens and further extended the ornamental planting and woodland.

Political and other activities

Currie was elected as MP for Northampton at the 1837 general election, and held the seat until he stood down twenty years later at the 1857 general election. He was a Whig and took an active part in debates and committees. He made contributions to debates on banking and currency and South Australia. He was a vigorous supporter of his party and on one occasion made a long speech chastising the leader of his party for crossing the floor and supporting the

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

party. In 1847 he served on the committee of the

British Relief Association The British Association for the Relief of Distress in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, known as the British Relief Association (BRA), was a private charity of the mid-19th century in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Establis ...

. In 1849, with

Richard Cobden Richard Cobden (3 June 1804 – 2 April 1865) was an English Radical and Liberal politician, manufacturer, and a campaigner for free trade and peace. He was associated with the Anti-Corn Law League and the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty. As a you ...

and Lord Dudley Stuart, Currie offered financial aid and support in Parliament for the stream of Hungarian émigrés who arrived in England in the wake of the

Hungarian Revolution of 1848 The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 or fully Hungarian Civic Revolution and War of Independence of 1848–1849 () was one of many European Revolutions of 1848 and was closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. Although t ...

as the forces of repression in Hungary intensified. Currie was a founder director of the

South Australian Company The South Australian Company, also referred to as the South Australia Company, was formed in London on 9 October 1835, after the '' South Australia (Foundation) Act 1834'' had established the new British Province of South Australia, with the S ...

History of Adelaide
/ref> and a director of the

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

Company. He was also a Member of the Provisional Committee of the South Australian Association and of the South Australia Literary and Scientific Association. He was one of four donors in 1859 of the Silver Bowl from which the annual Adelaide City Council 'toast to Colonel Light' is drunk. He was a religious man and was Treasurer of the South Australian District Committee of the Incorporated

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel United Society Partners in the Gospel (USPG) is a United Kingdom-based charitable organization (registered charity no. 234518). It was first incorporated under Royal Charter in 1701 as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Part ...

in Foreign Parts. As a member of the South Australian Church Society, Currie befriended and supported Charles Beaumont Howard, who had been appointed colonial chaplain to South Australia and was one of the first settlers in Adelaide. Currie started an important collection of books, manuscripts and works of art, which was considerably enlarged by his son Bertram and grandson Laurence. "... this eclectic collection embraced everything from Dresden porcelain, English portraits and clocks, and Italian old masters, to the French Decorative Arts of the eighteenth century". Some of the paintings, including a portrait by

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...

of the Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria, are now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.

Later life and death

The 1881 British Census found him at Minley Manor with his son Philip, his daughter Mary and her husband William Deacon, his niece Laura Wodehouse and 14 servants. He died on 16 October 1881 at age 80.

Legacy

Currie Street, Adelaide Currie Street is a main street in the Adelaide city centre, South Australia.Map
of the

1801 births 1881 deaths English bankers Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies People from Hart District Raikes family Directors of the South Australian Company UK MPs 1837–1841 UK MPs 1841–1847 UK MPs 1847–1852 UK MPs 1852–1857 Whig (British political party) MPs 19th-century English businesspeople