John Curwen

John Curwen was a descendant of the Curwens of Workington Hall in Cumbria, one of the oldest families in England, the male line proper being a direct descent from Eldred, a pre-Norman Englishman, whose son Ketel held lands in the Barony of Kendal. Orm, Ketel's son, inherited the Cumbrian manor of Workington.

Curwen was born 14 November 1816, at Heckmondwike, West Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Spedding Curwen and Mary Jubb. His father was a Non-conformist minister, as John was also from 1838 until 1864. Curwen gave up full-time ministry to devote himself to his new method of musical nomenclature.

He established the Tonic Sol-Fa Press in Plaistow, where he had been a minister, and in 1879 the Tonic Sol-Fa college (later the Forest Gate School of Music) in Forest Gate.

Curwen married Mary Thompson (1816–1890) in May 1845. They had four children – Margaret, John Spencer, Spedding and Thomas Herbert. Curwen died at Heaton Mersey, Stockport on 26 May 1880. His son John Spencer married Annie Jessy Gregg, who went on to write the extensive and influential series Mrs. Curwen's Pianoforte Method based on her adaptation for the piano of John Curwen's method for voice.