James enlisted as a Private in the 1st Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards in Sheffield on 14 September 1812 according to a surviving muster roll although James believed it was the previous year. He joined for an unlimited period and served in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War. He later fought in France and Belgium taking part in the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 with Lieutenant Colonel H. P. Townshend's Company, 3rd Battalion for which he was awarded, and subsequently lost, the Waterloo Medal. James said he was never wounded during the whole of his military service. He was discharged from the army in London on 16 March 1822 and was paid marching money from London to Sheffield; a journey of 162 miles which took 17 days.

James married Alethea Naisbitt on 22 August 1823 at Sheffield Parish Church (now the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul). Alethea was born in Sheffield in 1797, the daughter of William Naisbitt, a hairdresser, and his wife Winifred Howson who had married at the same church on 10 January earlier that year. It was Alethea's first marriage but the parish register shows that James was a widower. James and Alethea went on to have twelve children, nine of them girls, all born in Sheffield: Jane (1823), Theresa (1826), Clarissa (1827), William (1830), Lucy (1831), Harriett (1833), Mary (1834), Alethea (1837), Hannah (1839), George (1840), Sarah (1841) and John (1842). 

The family were living in Silver Street Head, near Paradise Square, in the 1841 Census. James had gone into partnership with Henry Ibbotson in the firm of Ibbotson and Curtis, joiner's tool and brace bit makers with workshops in nearby Lee Croft. The partnership was dissolved on 18 December 1841 but James continued to be a joiner's tool maker for the rest of his working life. Alethea died on 18 May 1849 in Harvest Lane, Neepsend aged 52. James never remarried. 

In the Census on 30 April 1851, James was living at Wood Side, Pitsmoor with four of his daughters: Clarissa, Harriett, Mary and Hannah. Theresa and Lucy were married and Jane, William, George and Sarah had all died. Clarissa married William Linton at Sheffield Parish Church on Christmas Day 1851. William was a joiner's tool maker and may have been working for James whose business remained at Harvest Lane.

In the next census in 1861, James, aged 70, was living at Oxford Road, Ecclesall with William and Clarissa and their two young children, Alethea and William Herbert Linton. Another son, Arthur, was born the following year and when the three Linton children were baptised together at St. Mary's, Bramall Lane on 17 August 1861, the family had moved to nearby George Street and William had become a porter. Sadly he died before the next census in 1871 when James, Clarissa and the two younger Linton children were living at 28 Sheldon Street, off Bramall Lane. 

By November 1874 James was too old and frail to work and was living on a small income from an old soldiers contributory savings club and from assistance from his family. He applied for a pension to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea and his case was supported by his regimental pensioners welfare officer. A medical report said he was suffering from chronic rheumatism and incapable of work. 

On Christmas Day 1874 Clarissa married William Anthony at St. Simon, Eyre Street, Sheffield. William was a bricklayer and a widower living on Arundel Street. By 1879, however, White's Trade Directory records that he had taken over from William Barker as the licensed victualler at the Cricket Inn, Totley Bents. 

This entry appeared in the Derbyshire Times on Saturday 21 February 1880.

A Waterloo veteran

We are told there now resides at Totley Bents, a man named James Chichester Curtis who was born on H.M.S. Chichester when that vessel was on a voyage to Jamaica in 1788 - so that he is now 92 years of age. As a soldier he served in the 1st Foot Guards, and at Waterloo and in Pennsylvania. He is now in good health and is residing at the Cricketers Inn, Totley Bents where he passes away his time by chatting with the company.

William Anthony's daughter Sarah, from his second marriage to Emma Green, gave birth to Ada Eckersley's grandmother on 4 March 1880. The baby was named Ada Emma Anthony but later became known as Ada Emma Elliott after her mother's marriage to James Elliott on 15 August 1880 at St. Matthew, Carver Street. Her birth certificate shows that her step-mother Clarissa Anthony was present at the birth and it was she who reported the birth to the registrar on 14 April.

William Anthony had died before the census was taken on 3 April 1881 and was replaced as the licensee of the Cricket Inn by his brother-in-law Samuel Duncan who had married Lucy Curtis at Christ Church, Pitsmoor on 30 March 1851. James Curtis was living in Sheffield at Court 4 House 3, Trafalgar Street with Clarissa and the family of her daughter Alethea Linton. He died at that address on 20 January 1882 and was buried at Christ Church, Heeley four days later. 

On Saturday 4 February the Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported: 

Home Notes

The last of our Sheffield veterans who fought at Waterloo died at No. 3 Court, Trafalgar street, on the 20th inst., at the advanced age of 92. His name was James Curtis and he was born on board the Chichester, when his parents were on their homeward voyage from Jamaica, where his father, who was a soldier, had been serving. Of late years Curtis has suffered greatly from gangrene of both feet. He served during the whole of the Peninsular war, and took part in the battle of Waterloo, where he was fortunate enough to escape without a single hurt. 

November 2020