CURETON, WILLIAM (1808-1864), English orientalist, was born at Westbury, Shropshire. Educated at the free grammar school of Newport, and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became chaplain of Christ Church, sub-librarian of the Bodleian, and, in 1837, assistant keeper of mss. in the British Museum. He was afterwards appointed select preacher to the university of Oxford, chaplain in ordinary to the Queen, rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, and canon of Westminster. He was elected F.R.S. and a trustee of the British Museum, and was also honoured by several Continental societies. He died on June' 17, 1864.
Cureton edited, with notes, an English translation of the Epis tles of Ignatius to Polycarp, the Ephesians and the Romans, from a Syriac ms. that had been found in the monastery of St. Mary Deipara, in the desert of Nitria, near Cairo, and other important Syriac mss.
See an introduction by Dr. W. Wright to Ancient Syriac Documents relative to the earliest Establishment of Christianity in Edessa, etc. (1864).