The family bank was connected to slavery in the British West Indies and contributed some £9,000 (possibly as much as £50,000) to the creation of South Australia in 1836.
Grandson Laurence Currie built a water tower, created a new complex of walled gardens and further extended the ornamental planting and woodland.
[19] He was a religious man and was Treasurer of the South Australian District Committee of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Currie started an important collection of books, manuscripts and works of art, which was considerably enlarged by his son Bertram and grandson Laurence.
"... this eclectic collection embraced everything from Dresden porcelain, English portraits and clocks, and Italian old masters, to the French Decorative Arts of the eighteenth century".
[22] Some of the paintings, including a portrait by Peter Paul Rubens of the Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria,[23] are now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA.
The 1881 British Census found him at Minley Manor with his son Philip, his daughter Mary and her husband William Deacon, his niece Laura Wodehouse and 14 servants.