Peter Curry

Thomas Peter Ellison Curry Q.C. (22 July 1921 – 25 January 2010) was a prominent English Barrister and athlete. The only man to take silk twice, he won triple Blues at Oxford and represented Great Britain in the 1948 Olympic Games.

Personal life

Thomas Peter Ellison Curry was born in Muree, India as his father was stationed there with the Royal Artillery. He was educated at Tonbridge and Oriel College, Oxford. At Oxford, he read law and graduated with the first, winning Middle Temple's Harmsworth Scholarship.^[1]

He married Pamela Joyce Curry (née Holmes) in 1951 and had four children, Guy, Iain, Fleur, and Jilly. He lived most of his married life in Surrey, latterly in the village of Dunsfold near Godalming.

Athletics

Curry was a good sportsman awarded Blues in squash, athletics, and cross-country. He won the 1947 Varsity Race and represented Great Britain in the 1947 World Student Games where he finished fourth in the three-mile-race. He won the 3000 metres steeplechase in the 1948 AAA Championships and was selected for that event at the 1948 Olympics in London, but did not make the final.^[1]

Legal career

Curry was called by Middle Temple in 1953 and took silk for the first time in 1966. A year later, he left the bar and joined Freshfields as a solicitor, where he set up the tax department. Returning to the bar in 1970, he took silk for a second time in 1974. In 1979 he became head of chambers at 4 Stone Buildings a position in which he remained until his retirement in 1996.

Curry appeared in many reported cases. He acted for John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in their dispute with Paul McCartney, shareholders in Banco Ambrosiano following the bank's collapse in the 1980s, and for Thomas Ward, the former director involved in the Guinness share-trading scandal.

References

• "Peter Curry: barrister, solicitor and athlete". The Times. 8 March 2010. Retrieved 28 March 2011.