CURETON, WILLIAM. – English Orientalist, b. at Westbury (Wiltshire) in 1804, d. in London on 17 June 1864. His name is linked to an important Syriac manuscript of the New Testament (v. GRECHE, VERSIONI DELLA BIBBIA), which he discovered and studied (1860).
Having completed his studies at Oxford, he became a minister of the Anglican Church in 1832, deputy librarian of the Bodleian and subsequently attached to the British Museum. C. studied and published many manuscripts, especially Syriac ones, including the letters of s. Ignatius in Syriac version (London 1845), the source of a long controversy. He published the Syriac text of the festal letters of s. Athanasius and many portions of works by various authors, including John of Ephesus, Melito of Sardis, Bardesanes, the letter of Mâra bar Serapion, and the History of the Martyrs in Palestine by Eusebius of Caesarea (1861).