M.P., of Windmill Hill Place, and Herstmonceaux Castle, Sussex. Also of Knell, Sussex. M.P. for Sussex from 1820 to 1830101.
(From the East Sussex County archivist. 2003) “On the death of Edward Jeremiah in 1835 the Windmill Hill Place estate was inherited by his son Herbert Barrett Curteis (1793-1847) and then in turn to his son Herbert Mascall Curteis (1824-1895) and to his son Herbert Curteis (1849-1919). On his death in 1919 the estate was sold by his son Herbert Charles Curteis. Robert Mascall Curteis (1851-1927), the second son of Herbert Mascall Curteis, married Florence Henrietta the daughter of the Rev Robert Shuttleworth Sutton.”

The Curteis family of Windmill Hill is continued in Burke’s Landed Gentry, 1952 edition, of which entry I have a copy.

Edward Jeremiah Curteis (1762-1835), my 4G-grandfather, was a lawyer and an M.P. for Sussex from 1820 to 1830. Maybe it's my cynical nature, but I suspect that he spent most of his time being a gentleman rather than in any useful pursuit, but who knows. Since most of what I know about him comes from his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, I might as well quote it directly.

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March 18. At Windmill Hill, near Battle, in his 73rd year, from a sudden attack of illness, after some years of previously declining health, universally respected and esteemed, Edward Jeremiah Curteis, Esq. a Magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant for the Counties of Kent and Sussex, and formerly M.P. for the latter county.

He was born at Rye in Sussex, July 6, 1762, and was the only son of Jeremiah Curteis, esq.\ of that town, the first of the family who settled in Sussex, and of Jane his wife, the daughter and coheiress of Searles Giles, esq. of Biddenden, Kent. His family has for centuries been settled in Kent, chiefly at and in the neighbourhood of Tenterden, of which town Mr. Curteis was Recorder for some years. Stephen Curteis was living at Apuldore, in the reign of Edward III.

[ In a footnote it says: Reginald Curteis of West Cliff, the son of Stephen, married April 17, 1402, Margaret, the daughter of Reginald Lord Cobham of Sterborough, and sister of Eleanor, the wife of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the Lord Protector of the Realm in the minority of Henry VI. Some time previous to the battle of Agincourt, Reginald Curteis, together with Richard Clydow, went over to Holland to treat for ships for the King's service, to be sent to the ports of London, Sandwich, and Winchelsea. The names of two Curteis's appear in the list of those who are mentioned as having fought at Agincourt, October 25, 1415. William Curteis was elected in 1429 Abbat [sic] of St. Edmond's Bury, the campanile or bell tower of which he repaired. In 1433 he entertained Henry VI. the Duke of Gloucester, and the Court, for some months at his Abbey. He died in 1445 (vide Dugdale's Monasticon). Piers Curteis was Keeper of the Wardrobe to Richard III.\ and the writer of the Wardrobe Account, or Coronation Roll of that monarch, which is still in existence (vide Arch\ae ologia). ]

His great grandson Thomas, 1527, married Joane, daughter and coheiress of Edw. Twaights, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports [nonsense; there was no such Twaights], in the reign of Henry VII. and VIII., whose arms the family still quarter, together with those of Segrave. His son William (ob. 1582) married twice. From his wife, Joan Buntinge, are descended the Curteis's of Sevenoaks, Tenterden, and Canterbury; from Joan Pattenden, the subject of the present memoir, as also the Curteis's of Otterden Place (vide Gents. Mag. vol CIL., part i, 396--).

Mr. Curteis was educated at Westminster School, which he entered in 1774, and of which he was head boy in 1778. He left the following year for Christ Church, at the early age of 16. In 1783 he took the degree of B.A., was elected Fellow of Oriel College in the following year, and proceeded to the degree of M.A. in 1786. He was called to the Bar in 1788; for some years he generally attended the Home Circuit, and was well acquainted, and intimate with many of the legal as well as the leading literary and political characters of the day.

In 1796 he left London, and resided in East Sussex [note that this was the year his father died, so that is presumably when he inherited the `duties' of a country gentleman], where he was well known as a most useful and active magistrate, and as one who thoroughly understood the local interests of the county. He was elected member for Sussex in 1820, together with the late Walter Burrell, esq. and again in 1826. He was independent as to party, and was distinguished in the house as a staunch and uncompromising agriculturist. Through his exertions were passed some local bills of considerable utility to his constituents. In 1830 his declining health induced him to retire altogether from Parliament and from public life; since which period he resided entirely at his seat, Windmill Hill, near Battle. His remains are interred in the family vault, in the church of Wartling, in which parish Windmill Hill is situated. He was succeeded in the representation of the county in 1830 by his eldest son, Herbert Barrett Curteis, esq. who is still one of the members for East Sussex.

Mr. Curteis married April 14, 1789, Mary, only dau. and heiress of the Rev. Stephen Barrett, M.A. of the Bent, in Kildwick, Craven, Yorkshire, and Rector of Hothfield in Kent the last male descendant of a very ancient Yorkshire family. His grandmother was the sister of Archbishop Sharpe. He married Mary, the only child of Edward Jacob, esq. of Feversham, Kent, by his second wife Mary Chalker, and the half-sister of Edward Jacob, esq. an eminent naturalist and antiquary.

[There follows information about his children and grandchildren.]

Mr. Curteis was endowed with brilliant talents, and was noted for his conversational powers, as well as for his varied and extensive information. He was a member of several literary and charitable institutions. He was a frequent contributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, &c. and was well known in both the literary and political world. He was universally beloved and esteemed; and, both in public and private life, he was a most active and useful member of society.
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A lot of E.J. Curteis's correspondence survives, and I even have copies of some of it. Unfortunately it's very difficult to read. I got it from the East Sussex Archives; you look up in the catalogues and get the numbers and write a letter and organise a postal note (no internet payments for them, thank you very much), and send it off, and wait, and wait, and wait, and finally you get a big envelope in the post which you open with terrific excitement ... to find 10 pages of poorly photocopied, completely illegible, writing, so dim and faded that you can barely tell it's writing as opposed to random markings. And for this you paid £1,000,000 and waited 20 years. It would piss off a bloody saint, I tell you.

So I've transcribed only one of these letters, which, as it gives a nice picture of the state of the family, I give in full here. It's difficult to read in spots, so this transcription is only partially accurate.

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[Postmarked 1827, the letter is addressed to Miss Inglis and Mrs Powis, Shane Street, Kensington. From E.J. Curteis. It is a letter from Edward Jeremiah Curteis to his granddaughter, Mary, daughter of Mary Curteis who married Steuart Boone Inglis. Mary Curteis was long dead by this date.]


Windmill Hill Battel

Sept. 23 1827

My Dear Mary

I am desired to forward to you the inclosed letter from your Father, by your Grandmamma, & I take the opportunity of saying to you that all of this family are well -- we are glad to find that you like your new situation & we hope that you will make the most & best of it for Improvement [sounds like a Grandfather, indeed]. We expect your Uncle and Aunt Darby [that would be Laura Curteis, daughter of E.J., and her hubby] to come over in the [?] for some months -- the Graham families [that would be Caroline and John et al.] are all of them in France -- the Edwards we have lately heard of -- the Coll[?] has the Govt of the Province of Cutch[?] & the Command of the Army there. Mrs. Mascall & Anne [I think he's referring to his sister, who married Robert Mascall] are with us, they have been on a very pleasant tour in the West. Mr. Frankland Lewis Mrs. Hare's son, is appointed as Secretary to the Treasury -- the Wagner families are all assembled at Hurstmonceux. Past Bowne[.....?. I really can't read it here]. Mr. [?] is at Rose Cottage but the lodge is unlet. We have had a good deal of papering & painting done at the Hill this Summer -- which now seems to be over, for of late we have had a great deal of rain & wind.

Your uncle Herbert [Herbert Barrett] is coming back from Scotland. Reginald is still here & Edward is at B[?] and has been on a visit from there to Mrs. Collet [E.J.'s sister married a Collet] at the Jungle. Mr. Luxford has purchased a house at Robert's Bridge, called Highhome -- a very pretty place -- Miss Emily Graham [sister of John Graham, who married Caroline Curteis] I am glad to say is quite restored to health in all respects. Mr. Young our Curate has just been presented by his Lady with a little Boy -- the Greenalls are living together at the Living in Suffolk near Cambridge -- which is a very good one -- Your Grandmama & I have both of [us] been better in health than usual this Summer -- & your Aunt Eliz has been on the whole very well. We have a great many tame Pheasants running about on the Lawn -- & there is an abundance of game this year. We all unite in kind love to you and in every fond wish. I am My Dear GrandDaughter,

Always

Most Affectionately Yours

E.J. Curteis
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In the other correspondence, Caroline was writing to her brother Edward, who was very interested in the genealogy of the Hodges family (his wife was a Hodges), but I haven't bothered to transcribe it properly yet. Neither have I transcribed Edward Jeremiah's will, of which I also have a copy. One day, somebody with more energy than myself will do these jobs and send me a nice legible electronic file. Please.


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Edward Curteis was a member of Parliament, and these is a detailed history of his parliamentary career in the History of Parliament online (http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/18...eis-edward-1762-1835). There is a wonderful introduction to this article, so redolent of British snobbery that it makes you cringe a bit. Here are the first couple of paragraphs (from a much longer article that deals mostly with how he voted on what issue.)

Curteis’s family had been small landowners in the Tenterden area of south-east Kent since Medieval times. He was originally named after his father, but rebaptized as Edward Jeremiah, 1 Dec. 1798, possibly to clarify the professional distinction between them. His father, an attorney, had settled over the Sussex border at Rye, where he served as town clerk, set up a family bank in 1790 and began to acquire local landed property. Curteis practised as a special pleader on the home circuit until 1797, and at the Sussex sessions, before disappearing from the law lists in 1805 or 1806. Around the time of his succession to his father’s estates in 1806 he moved to the ‘elegant’ mansion at Windmill Hill. He accelerated the process of establishing a landed family with further purchases, including a deal reportedly worth £90,000 with Sir Godfrey Webster†, whom he eventually replaced as Member for Sussex. Land in Romney Marsh came via his marriage to an heiress, and by 1834 he was listed as a major landowner in 12 parishes in the rape of Pevensey. Lord Sheffield recognized his upward mobility in 1820, describing him as ‘a useful country gentleman of a family rather above the yeomanry, very rich’. His contributions to such publications as the Gentleman’s Magazine, usually on topics of antiquarian interest, demonstrated that he had literary pretensions too, and he was fond of parading his classical scholarship (a habit into which he occasionally lapsed in his later parliamentary speeches).1 His politics, to judge from his vote at the 1802 Kent election, had once been Whiggish, but in 1820 he was brought forward to contest Sussex by Tory grandees, led by Lords Ashburnham and Egremont, who were anxious to oust Webster, the radical sitting Member. In his first address he expressed his ‘full approbation’ of the Six Acts and declared himself to be a ‘firm and determined supporter of the constitution’, although he was ‘wholly unconnected with party and without bias in my politics’. He accepted that his ‘primary duty’ would be to use his best endeavours to help relieve the ‘present agricultural distresses’. He later professed his ‘attachment to religion, but not the religion of Carlile’, and his ‘regard for true liberty, but not the liberty of Hunt*, Watson and Thistlewood’, which he described as ‘a liberty begotten by French Jacobinism on the body of atheism’. Despite mounting hysteria over his personal safety and the cost of the election, particularly after Webster retired in favour of a cousin of the duke of Devonshire, his nerve, and the resolve of his backers, held long enough for him to be returned in second place, after an eight-day poll. Egremont privately regarded him as an ‘irresolute brute’ and was not alone in regretting his selection for the seat.
William Huskisson*, in a letter of introduction to Charles Arbuthnot*, the Liverpool ministry’s patronage secretary, was scarcely enthusiastic about Curteis:

“Now that we have made him knight of the shire I turn him over to you with all his imperfections on his head. Lord Ashburnham gave him to us and will I suppose vouch for him. I am sure that I will not. Unless he is kept steady by having an object in view (which I rather suspect may be the case) he will be as often against us as for us (and not when they most need him). There should be some explanation with Lord Ashburnham on this point, but I am afraid he will not be able to manage the hog, or willing to take the trouble.”

Only daughter and heir of Rev. Stephen Barrett, Rector of Hothfield, Kent, and the last male descendant of the ancient family of Barrett of the Bent, Kildwick, Yorks.

Her obituary appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. 171, page 209. I quote it here in full.

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May 14. At Windmill Hill, near Battle, Sussex, in her 77th year, greatly esteemed and respected, Mrs. Curteis, the widow of the late Edward Jeremiah Curteis, esq. formerly M.P. for the county of Sussex, whom she married April 14th 1789, and who died March 18th 1835 (Vide Gent. Mag. New Series, vol III. 543).

She was born August 14, 1764, at Ickleford, Herts, and was the only child and heiress of the Rev. Stephen Barrett, Rector of Ickleford and Porton, Herts, and of Hothfield in Kent, who died November, 1801. (Vide Gent. Mag. vol LXXI, Part II, page 1152). He was the last male descendant of the ancient family of the Barretts of the Bent, in the parish of Kildwick, Craven, Yorkshire, which property had been in their possession for several centuries; indeed, even before teh general adoption of surnames in England, but it was considerably injured, in consequence of his paternal grandfather having been a zealous partizan of King Charles the First, during the great rebellion. (footnote: the family house was pulled down some years ago.) Mr. Barrett’s paternal grandfather was sister of Archbishop Sharp. His mother’s name was Clough. In 1749, he married Mary, the only daughter of Edward Jacob, esq. of Canterbury, by his second wife, Mary, the daughter of ---- Chalker, esq. of Romney, Kent.

Mrs. Barret was a friend of the famous Mrs. Carter of Deal, and half sister to Edward Jacob, esq., an eminent naturalist and antiquary, and author of the History of Feversham, &c. In early life Mr. Barrett was intimate with the celebrated Dr. Johnson, and Mr. Cave, the original editor of the Gentleman’s Magazine, to which he was himself a frequent contributor, and one of the earliest subscribers. He was a distinguished classical scholar, and published several poetical translations and minor poems.

Mrs. Curteis was a sensible and very superior woman, with a highly cultivated and particularly well-informed mind. She had a sincere but unostentatious sense of religion, and was remarkable for her charity and munificence to the poor, who have in her lost a kind and liberal friend and partroness.

[A little bit about her surviving children...]

The remains of Mrs. Curteis are interred in the family vault of the Curteises, of Windmill Hill, in the parish church of Wartling, East Sussex.