Author: Curties, Marianne
Biography:
CURTIES, Marianne, formerly CHANDLER (1771-1841: ancestry.co.uk)
She was probably baptised on 28 Dec. 1771 in Kingston-upon-Thames, the daughter of Thomas Chandler and his wife Margaret Wilkinson. For reasons unknown, she moved about thirty miles west to Reading where, by the summer of 1796, she was running a boarding school in Broad Street with Ann Grint (almost certainly a relative of her future husband). They continued to at least 1811. Her only publication, Classical Pastimes (1813), was probably written for use in the school. She married Thomas Grint Curties (1784-1853) on 20 Dec. 1804 at St Vedast, Foster Lane, London. Her husband held a number of civic appointments in Reading: Mayor, Superintendant Registrar, Clerk to the Guardians, Treasurer to the Borough. They had four sons and two daughters. At some point, Ann Grint went to London and Marianne’s daughters, Marianne and Clara, ran the school, now known as Abbey House, with her at 11-12 Albion Place. She died on 2 May 1841 and was buried at St. Giles Reading. Her husband survived her but eventually went blind and was no doubt cared for by the unmarried daughters who continued to run the school into the 1850s. (ancestry.co.uk 5 Oct. 2020; findmypast.co.uk 5 Oct. 2020; Reading Mercury 20 June 1796, 8 May 1841; Berkshire Chronicle 24 July 1830, 5 Jan. 1839; Slater’s Directory for Berkshire [1852]) AA