Playwright and screenwriter Kenneth G Ross is researching the life of Mr Curnow, whom he feels has been unfairly vilified for potentially saving the lives of the policemen, native trackers and journalists who were travelling on specially-chartered trains from Melbourne to try and apprehend the gang. 

Mr Ross wrote the play upon which the film script for Breaker Morant was based, as well as other plays and television screenplays. He says he decided to write a novel about Mr Curnow after discovering he had been transferred from Glenrowan to Ballarat within three days following the siege, because he found it was hard to live in the region with Kelly sympathisers.

Mr Curnow lived at 225 Raglan Street South, and had four children: Maude, Isobel, Thomas and Leonard. Thomas was killed in France in the Great War, in August 1918. Leonard returned from the war and had four children, but was later committed to the Ballarat Mental Asylum, possibly due to shellshock.

Kenneth Ross has travelled to Ballarat hoping to find out more about Mr Curnow’s life here. We know that he was employed by the Education Department to teach at three schools – Central, Humffray and Urquhart, and that he retired in 1915, before dying in 1922 at the age of 67.

A contemporary report of 1880 says that upon his arrival in Ballarat, he was called on the balcony of the Mechanics’ Institute and all the ‘Cornermen’ (those working in the financial buildings and stock exchange on the corner of Lydiard and Sturt streets), some 400 or 500 strong, rushed to the road to cheer him.

Mr Curnow received the Silver Medal of the Victorian Humane Society for his actions, and a share of the reward offered for the capture of the Kelly Gang.

Relatives or anyone with information about Mr Curnow or his descendants can contact Kenneth Ross on 0423 710 304.