"PAT" CUEEEY 61 



Finding that the Vice-Provost of King's, Mr. Walter Durnford, 

 had been one of Currey's pupils, I sent him Professor Jackson's 

 Memoir, asking if he could add anything from his own recollection, 

 and received the reply following : — 



Letter from Mr. W. Durnford, Vice-Provost of King's College 



King's College, Cambridge, 

 Feb. 22, 1912. 



Dear Mr. Kempson — I really do not think that I can add any- 

 thing to Professor Jackson's reminiscences of " Pat " Currey which 

 you sent me, and which I have returned, as you requested, to the 

 Professor. 



I coached with W. E. Currey for the Classical Tripos, I think in 

 1867, and got to know him well in that way. I came to him from 

 Henry Jackson, who gave up his private pupils, I fancy, on being 

 appointed Examiner for the Classical Tripos. Currey was a delightful 

 teacher, perhaps rather too easy-going for the ordinary under- 

 graduate, especially for one who had been under the sterner rule of 

 Professor Jackson. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with him as a 

 pupil, A little later I saw a good deal of him when we were both 

 acting at the "A.D.C." in a burlesque called Atalanta, when 

 " Pat " Currey played the part of " O'rion," got up as a stage Irish- 

 man, and sang Irish songs in a magnificent brogue. 



I left Cambridge in 1870, and when I returned in 1899 was 



delighted to find my old friend established there as H.M.'s Senior 



Inspector for the Eastern Counties. His health was then frail, and 



his official career was nearing its end ; but his humour, his patience, 



and his incorrigible cheerfulness still survived. — Believe me, yours 



sincerely, 



(Signed) W. Durnford. 



Currey's easy-going " undonnish " qualities seem to me to be 

 quite true to type. Those who come of agrarian and sporting stock, 

 and are brouglit up on such traditions, never conform altogether and 

 con amove, whether as undergraduates or as seniors, to the conventions 

 of academic life. 



