| Main entry | Curzon, Sarah Anne |
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| Birth place | Aston, Warwickshire, England |
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| Birth date | 1833 |
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| Death place | Toronto, Ontario |
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| Death date | 6 November 1898 |
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| Identifier | 0257 |
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| Birth name | Sarah Anne Vincent |
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| Alternate names | Anglo-Canadian, Aurora, S.A.C. |
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| Married name | Curzon |
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| Marital status | married |
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| Religious affiliation | Anglican |
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| Paid work | journalist |
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| Biography | Sarah Anne Vincent (1833-1898) was born near Birmingham, England, to George Phillips Vincent (c1810-), an affluent and well-educated glass-maker who encouraged his children to interact with scientists gathered at regular meetings hosted at the family home. Sarah's education at a girls' school was supplemented by private tutoring in music and languages, which would later allow her to translate works by Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, and Philippe Desportes, as well as French-Canadian writers, including Sulte, Le Moine, and Le May. Even in her early years, Sarah wrote and contributed to periodicals, including London's LEISURE HOUR. In 1858 she married Robert Curzon (c1824-1894) of Norfolk; in 1862 they immigrated to Toronto where they seem to have had five children. Daughter Edith was among the first graduates of the University of Toronto, and stayed with Sarah after she was widowed. Son Frederick served with the 10th Royal Grenadiers in the Riel Rebellion. Curzon published two works on Laura Secord, a verse drama and a biographical pamphlet. She paid the publication expenses of her major volume, LAURA SECORD ... AND OTHER POEMS (1887), which reprints her feminist play, "The Sweet Girl Graduate," after it first appeared in the annual GRIP-SACK (Toronto, 1882). Her career as a journalist (often publishing under her initials "S.A.C.") is still being uncovered. In an 1886 letter to John Reade, seeking employment with the MONTREAL GAZETTE, she states that she has written for the CANADA PILGRIM, the YORKVILLE NEWS, the BOSTON WOMEN'S JOURNAL, the TORONTO MAIL, the ORILLIA PACKET, GRIP, the MONTREAL GOSSIP (as "Anglo-Canadian") and the CANADIAN MONTHLY (as "Aurora"). She seems also to have worked as a reader for publishers; in 1895, for example, E.S. Caswell enlisted her response to a manuscript from *Marshall Saunders. A friend and correspondent of William Kirby, Curzon was intensely patriotic towards her adopted country, and gave frequent papers to historical associations. She co-founded and served as the first President of the Women's Historical Society in Toronto, and assisted in founding the Women's Medical College. She was concerned with the feminist issues of her day, including married women's property, university education for women, and suffrage, and was one of the Canadians who attended the International Council of Women at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Sarah died in 1898 of Bright's (kidney) Disease, and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery. |
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| Other notes | Several children moved to British Columbia. Surname often spelled "Curson." |
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| Residences | Coventry, Warwickshire, England (c1833-1860); Solihull, Warwickshire, England (1861); Toronto, Ontario (c1862-1898) |
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| Geographic regions | Ontario |
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| Primary genres | poetry; drama; non-fiction |
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| Books | LAURA SECORD, THE HEROINE OF 1812: A DRAMA, AND OTHER POEMS (1887); THE STORY OF LAURA SECORD, 1813 (1891); CANADA IN MEMORIAM, 1812-1814 (1891) |
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| Periodicals | LEISURE HOUR; BELFORD'S MONTHLY MAGAZINE; BOSTON WOMEN'S JOURNAL; CANADIAN CITIZEN; CANADIAN MAGAZINE; CANADIAN MONTHLY; CANADIAN PILGRIM; THE DOMINION ILLUSTRATED; THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHMAN; GRIP; THE GRIP-SACK; JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS OF THE WENTWORTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY; MONTREAL GOSSIP; ORILLIA PACKET; PROCEEDINGS OF THE PIONEER AND HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO; TORONTO MAIL; THE WEEK; YORKVILLE NEWS |
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| Other publications | "The Battle of Queenston Heights, Oct. 13, 1812," WOMEN'S CANADIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF TORONTO, Trans., no.2 (1899): 5–12.
Anthologized in: Campbell, OXFORD BOOK OF CANADIAN VERSE (1913); Caswell, CANADIAN SINGERS AND THEIR SONGS (1925); Lighthall, CANADIAN POEMS AND LAYS (c1892); Lighthall, SONGS OF THE GREAT DOMINION (1889); Rand, TREASURY OF CANADIAN VERSE (1900); Ross, PATRIOTIC RECITATIONS AND ARBOR DAY EXERCISES (1893); Whyte-Edgar, WREATH OF CANADIAN SONG (1910) |
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| Organizations | Toronto Women's Literary Club, Lundy's Lane Historical Society, York Pioneer and Historical Society, Women's Canadian Historical Society |
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| Father's name | George Phillips Vincent |
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| Life dates of father | c1810 - before 1871 |
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| Father's note | glass manufacturer and clerk; suffered bankruptcy in 1835 |
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| Mother's name | Mary Amelia Jackson |
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| Life dates of mother | c1804, Birmingham, England - 1873, Aston, England |
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| Mother's note | "Almswoman" (1871) |
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| Spouse 1 | Robert Curzon |
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| Life dates of spouse 1 | c1824, England - 18 October 1894, Toronto, Ontario |
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| Spouse 1 note | gold and iron manufacturer and agent |
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| Marriage 1 date | 1858 |
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| Marriage 1 place | Warwickshire, England |
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| Children number | 5? |
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| Children's names and dates | Robert Thomas (3 August 1860 - 18 January 1930), m. to Rebecca Stuart;
Florence Elizabeth (12 January 1861 - 17 December 1947) m. to Arthur Jones;
Frederick William (c1862 - 13 August 1890);
Arthur John (c1865 - 3 May 1944), m. to Mary Power Semple;
Edith Mary (c1867 - after 1897) |
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| Biographical references | Dictionary of Canadian Biography XII; Lady Edgar, "Sketch of Mrs. Curzon's Life and Work" in ANNUAL REPORT OF WOMEN'S CANADIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF TORONTO, 1897-98, Transaction 2; Cabbagetown Preservation Association; FEMINIST COMPANION TO LITERATURE IN ENGLISH (1990); 1851 England Census; 1871 Census of Canada; 1881 Census of Canada; 1891 Census of Canada; Ontario, Canada, Deaths, 1869-1938 and Deaths Overseas, 1939-1947 |
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| Bibliographic references | Watters, CHECKLIST OF CANADIAN LITERATURE...1620-1960 (1970), pp. 52, 430, 488 |
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| Research references | complete |
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| Archival references | about 20 letters to William Kirby, Kirby papers, Archives of Ontario; several letters to W.D. Lighthall, Lighthall Papers, McGill; letter to John Reade, John Reade papers, McCord Museum. |
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| Image credits | Image courtesy of Peter Curzon; posted on the Cabbagetown People website. |
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| Copyright | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. Please cite Canada's Early Women Writers. SFU Library Digital Collections. Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. 1980-2014. |
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