Who Was Harold W. Curtis?
Fuller was well-known in his day and there are multiple studies of his life and works, with particular emphasis in recent years on his gay-themed writings.[1] In 2000, Henry Blake Fuller was inducted posthumously into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame for his queer writings.[2] Harold W. Curtis is not widely known. Who was he and what became of him?
Curtis came from a privileged background, with family wealth based on the manufacture of sea biscuits for the British Navy, with additional concerns in shipping, banking, and the manufacture of gunpowder. The central figure in the family was Sir William Curtis (1752–1829), first baronet, also known as “Billy Biscuit.” Curtis had a long career in politics as a member of the British parliament, stretching from 1790 to 1826. During 1795–96 he served as Lord Mayor of London. He was famous for hosting lavish parties at his estate, Cullands Grove. Indeed, upon his death the estate sale ran for a week and included more than 4,000 bottles of fine wine and spirits.[3]
Harold William Curtis was born March 13, 1875, in Kingston-on-Thames, the youngest of ten children.[4] His father, Charles William Curtis (1824–1905), a grandson of Sir William Curtis, was the chairman of the family’s London-based gunpowder manufacturing business, Curtis & Harvey Ltd., served as a Justice of the Peace for the county of Kent, and later was on the County Bench at Wingham and Dover.[5] By 1881 he and Harold’s mother, Henrietta Francisca Robinson (1830–1914), were living at the Everleigh Manor House in Everleigh, Wiltshire, which included a merchant farm of 400 acres with a staff of ten men and four boys. The 1881 census listed Harold W. Curtis, aged six, as a “scholar,” living here with his parents, four siblings, a cousin, and sixteen servants.[6] The 1891 census showed the household reduced to the parents and two children, plus twelve servants. At the age of sixteen, Harold was not living at home then and was likely at school.[7]
I have not been able to identify where Harold Curtis attended school before showing up in Toronto. In fact, he mostly disappeared from the historical record and reappeared only occasionally afterward. He did attend his father’s funeral on May 9, 1905, in Kearsney, Kent.[8] Curtis was listed in the 1911 census as a single man of private means, thirty-six years old, living at The Common, Broughton House, Broughton Gifford, near Melksham, Wiltshire, with one manservant, Lorenzo Hill Hunt.[9] Curtis reappeared on August 14, 1914, when he enlisted as a private in the British Army for a short period of service. At that time, he was thirty-nine years old, six feet and one-half inch, 163 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He had been living at “The Rook” on Road Hill in Bath, with his occupation listed as “independent.” He was assigned to shore duty at Pembroke I at Chatham, where he served from August 26 to October 4, 1914. On October 15, 1914, he was transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps Home Hospital Reserve, where he was a driver. Curtis was discharged on May 27, 1915, after his term of service expired.[10]
I have been unable to verify if Curtis worked at any occupation other than military service during wartime. In census returns or other forms his occupation was generally listed as “independent” or “private means.” He did not have to work due to his family’s wealth, which allowed him a degree of flexibility. In the 1921 census he was listed as a visitor at Winkfield the Old School, Windsor, Winkfield, Berkshire. Curtis certainly liked to travel, beginning in his student days and continuing throughout life. His travels were documented in various maritime arriving passenger and crew lists. For example, he departed Honolulu, Hawaii, on the President Taft and arrived in San Francisco, March 8, 1924. In February 1934 Curtis made a round trip on the Duchess of Richmond from Southampton, England, to San Juan, Puerto Rico. And he travelled by ship from Southampton, England, to Singapore, first class, on the Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Nederland Line Royal Dutch Mail in October 1938.[11]
Harold William Curtis of West Riding Station-road, Bramley, Guildford, died on February 9, 1952, at the age of seventy-six, and was buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, Bramley, on February 13.[12] His estate was probated in London on May 2, 1952, with the beneficiaries being Bernard Alleyne Murray, solicitor, and Charles Heathcote Fowle, a retired major in the British army. The estate was valued at slightly over £20,733, or with inflation calculated to October 2025, approximately $707,445 USD in today’s funds.[13]
[1] In addition to Bernard R. Bowron, Jr., Henry B. Fuller of Chicago, and Kenneth Scambray, A Varied Harvest, see Constance M. Griffin, Henry Blake Fuller: A Critical Biography (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1939; reprinted 2017), and John Pilkington, Henry Blake Fuller. Twayne’s United States Authors Series 175 (New York: Twayne, 1970). More recent studies include Eric Colleary, “A Queer Victorian Marriage: Henry Blake Fuller’s At Saint Judas’s and the “Tyranny” of the Archival Document” in A Tyranny of Documents: The Performing Arts Historian as Film Noir Detective, Stephen Johnson, ed. (New York: Theatre Library Association, 2011), 178, 180–85, 346; Keith Gumery, “Repression, Inversion and Modernity: A Freudian Reading of Henry Blake Fuller’s ‘Bertram Cope’s Year.’” Journal of Modern Literature 25, no. 3/4 (2002): 40–57, and “Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope’s Year,” in Anthony Slide, Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century (New York: Routledge, 2011), 94–97.
[2] “Henry Blake Fuller,” The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, https://chicagolgbthalloffame.org/fuller-henry-blake/ (accessed December 15, 2025).
[3] Norman Gash, “Sir William Curtis, First Baronet (1752–1829)” in H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In Association with The British Academy. From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), vol. 14, 781–82. See also Darryl Lundy, The Peerage: A Genealogical Survey of the Peerage of Britain As Well As the Royal Families of Europe, ThePeerage.com (updated November 30, 2025, accessed December 9, 2025), number 38006.
[4] Lundy, The Peerage, number 307528.
[5] Lundy, The Peerage, number 307401. See also “Death of Mr. C.W. Curtis,” Dover Express, May 5, 1905.
[6] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, RG11–2062, April 4, 1881, Everleigh, Wiltshire. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881.
[7] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1891, RG12–1613, April 6, 1891, Everleigh, Wiltshire. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1891.
[8] “Funerals,” Dover Express, May 12, 1905.
[9] Census Returns of England and Wales, 1911, RG14, 1911. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1911.
[10] Curtis’s regimental number was 27444. See Ancestry.com, UK, British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-1920 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com, 2010.
[11] BT27 Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and Successors: Outward Passenger Lists; Reference Number: Series BT27–162643. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA).
[12] Harold Curtis in Surrey History Centre, Woking, Surrey, England, Surrey Church of England Parish Registers, Reference BRAM/5/3; Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com, 2013.
[13] England and Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995; Lehi, UT: Ancestry.com, 2010.