Curr was born in
Hobart,
Tasmania (then known as
Van Diemen's Land), the eldest of eleven surviving children of
Edward Curr (1798–1850) and Elizabeth (née Micklethwaite) Curr. His parents had moved to Hobart from
Sheffield,
England in February 1820, where Curr's father went into business as a
merchant. Curr's father left Tasmania for England in June 1823, and wrote ''An Account of the Colony of Van Diemen's Land principally designed for the use of Emigrants'', which was published in 1824, he later returned and became the chief agent of the
Van Diemen's Land Company, and in November 1827, the family moved to the
Circular Head region, where the company held substantial lands. Curr was sent to England for his schooling, and was educated at
Stonyhurst College in
Lancashire, from 17 December 1829 to 10 August 1837, and the following year boarded at
Douai School in northern
France to study
French. Curr returned to Tasmania in January 1839. Curr accompanied his father on an 1839 visit to
Melbourne in the
Port Phillip District (what is now the state of
Victoria, which separated from
New South Wales in 1851, after a campaign in which Curr's father was an important participant). From February 1841 Curr returned to the District to manage a handful of his father's
sheep farming properties in northern and central Victoria, including several in the
Goulburn Valley region. Curr also managed one property in a partnership with his brother William. Curr managed the properties until the end of 1850 and early 1851, when following his father's death the properties were sold. In February 1851 Curr and two of his younger brothers sailed to England, with Curr then embarking on travel around parts of
Europe and the
Middle East, before marrying Margaret Vaughan of
County Kildare,
Ireland, on 31 January 1854. Curr returned to Victoria in August 1854, staying in Melbourne for just a month before moving to
Auckland,
New Zealand, where he ran a business importing Australian horses. From 1856 to 1861, Curr made two unsuccessful attempts to return to work as a pastoralist, firstly in
Queensland and then around the
Lachlan River in central New South Wales. In November 1862 Curr traveled once more to Victoria, moving to a house in
Chapel Street,
St Kilda. In Victoria he worked as a government inspector of sheep, ultimately becoming Chief Inspector of Sheep on 17 May 1864. 1863 he published a book on
Pure Saddle-Horses. Curr was promoted to chief inspector of all stock on 16 January 1871, and in this role helped to stop outbreaks of
foot-and-mouth disease in 1872 and of
scab disease in sheep in 1876. Curr died in 1889 in St. Kilda, and was buried in the St Kilda General Cemetery. ==Publications and recognition==