William Leslie Curnow (1867 – 11 February 1926) was an Australian-born journalist and spiritualist who wrote for the ''

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

'' and the ''

London Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fo ...

''. He is chiefly remembered for his involvement with Sir

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

's famous two-volume work ''The History of Spiritualism''.

Birth and education

Curnow was the youngest son of Matilda Susanna Curnow née Weiss (1829–1921) and

William Curnow William Curnow (1832 – 14 October 1903) was a Cornish Australian journalist, and Methodist minister, and was editor of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' for 15 years. Early life Curnow was baptised on 2 December 1832 at St Ives, Cornwall, Unit ...

(1832–1903) and was born in Sydney, Australia. As he had the same first name as his father and followed in his father's footsteps as a journalist he used his second

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a f ...

, Leslie, to differentiate himself from his father. His father was the editor of the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' for 15 years. His mother foundered the Optimists' Club of New South Wales. With

Maybanke Anderson Maybanke Susannah Anderson (née Selfe and also known as Maybanke Wolstenholme; 16 February 1845 – 15 April 1927) was an Australian suffragist and education reformer involved in Women's suffrage in Australia, women's suffrage, Federation of ...

and

Louisa Macdonald Louisa Macdonald (10 December 1858 – 28 November 1949) was an educationist and women's suffragist. Early life and education Louisa Macdonald was born in 1858 in Arbroath, Scotland, the eleventh child of Ann (née Kid) and John Macdonald, tow ...

she helped establish free

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

s and was a founder of the Women's Literary Society and

The Women's College, University of Sydney The Women's College is a residential college within the University of Sydney, in the suburb of Camperdown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was opened in 1892. The Women's College is one of two all-female residential colleges at The Uni ...

. He was educated at

Newington College Newington College is a multi-campus Independent school, independent Uniting Church in Australia, Uniting Church Single-sex education, single-sex and Mixed-sex education, co-educational Pre-school education, early learning, Primary school, primar ...

commencing in 1882. On completion of his school years he matriculated in March 1887. Curnow went up to the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1890 taking the MacCallum Prize for literature.

Career

Upon graduation, he became a journalist at the ''Sydney Morning Herald'' until moving to London in 1913 and joining the staff of the ''London Times''. He became a member of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...

and was assistant editor of the spiritualist journal ''Light''. He contributed articles to a variety of psychic periodicals and wrote several books, most notably ''The physical phenomena of spiritualism''. Curnow died in London in 1925.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curnow, William Leslie 1867 births 1926 deaths People educated at Newington College Australian newspaper editors The Sydney Morning Herald people People from Taunton The Sydney Morning Herald editors