George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston

Curzon was educated at All Souls College, Oxford, of which he was a Prize Fellow

Curzon was the eldest son and the second of the eleven children of Alfred Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), who was the Rector of Kedleston in Derbyshire. George Curzon's mother was Blanche (1837–1875), the daughter of Joseph Pocklington Senhouse of Netherhall in Cumberland. He was born at Kedleston Hall, built on the site where his family, who were of Norman ancestry, had lived since the 12th century. His mother, exhausted by childbirth, died when George was 16; her husband survived her by 41 years. Neither parent exerted a major influence on Curzon's life. Scarsdale was an austere and unindulgent father who believed in the long-held family tradition that landowners should stay on their land and not go "roaming about all over the world". He thus had little sympathy for those journeys across Asia between 1887 and 1895 which made his son one of the most travelled men who ever sat in a British cabinet. A more decisive presence in Curzon's childhood was that of his brutal, sadistic governess, Ellen Mary Paraman, whose tyranny in the nursery stimulated his combative qualities and encouraged the obsessional side of his nature. Paraman used to beat him and periodically forced him to parade through the village wearing a conical hat bearing the words liar, sneak, and coward. Curzon later noted, "No children well born and well-placed ever cried so much and so justly."[1]

Curzon at Eton, 1870s

He was educated at Wixenford School,[2] Eton College,[3] and Balliol College, Oxford.[4] At Eton, he was a favourite of Oscar Browning, an over-intimate relationship that led to his tutor's dismissal.[5][6] A spinal injury incurred whilst riding during his adolescence left Curzon in lifelong pain, which often caused insomnia, and which required him to wear a metal corset for the duration of his life.[7]

At Oxford, Curzon was President of the Union[4] and Secretary of the Oxford Canning Club (a Tory political club named for George Canning): as a consequence of the extent of his time-expenditure on political and social societies, he failed to achieve a first class degree in Greats, although he subsequently won both the Lothian Prize Essay and the Arnold Prize, the latter for an essay on Sir Thomas More, about whom he confessed to having known almost nothing before commencing study). In 1883, Curzon received the most prestigious fellowship at the university, a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College. Whilst at Eton and at Oxford, Curzon was a contemporary and close friend of Cecil Spring Rice and Edward Grey.[8] However, Spring Rice contributed, alongside John William Mackail, to the composition of a famous sardonic doggerel about Curzon that was published as part of The Balliol Masque, about which Curzon wrote in later life "never has more harm been done to one single individual than that accursed doggerel has done to me."[9] It ran:

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,

I am a most superior person.

My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,

I dine at Blenheim once a week.[9]

When Spring-Rice was British Ambassador to the United States, he was suspected by Curzon of trying to prevent Curzon's engagement to the American Mary Leiter, whom Curzon nevertheless married.[10] However, Spring Rice assumed for a certainty, like many of Curzon's other friends, that Curzon would inevitably become Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: he wrote to Curzon in 1891, 'When you are Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I hope you will restore the vanished glory of England, lead the European concert, decide the fate of nations, and give me three month's leave instead of two'.[11]

Garter-encircled shield of arms of George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, as displayed on his Order of the Garter stall plate in St. George's Chapel.

Curzon became Assistant Private Secretary to Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered Parliament as Member for Southport in south-west Lancashire.[4] His maiden speech, which was chiefly an attack on home rule and Irish nationalism, was regarded in much the same way as his oratory at the Oxford Union: brilliant and eloquent but also presumptuous and rather too self-assured. Subsequent performances in the Commons, often dealing with Ireland or reform of the House of Lords (which he supported), received similar verdicts. He was Under-Secretary of State for India in 1891–92 and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1895–98.[12]

In the meantime he had travelled around the world: Russia and Central Asia (1888–89), a long tour of Persia (September 1889 – January 1890), Siam, French Indochina and Korea (1892), and a daring foray into Afghanistan and the Pamirs (1894). He published several books describing central and eastern Asia and related policy issues.[4] A bold and compulsive traveler, fascinated by oriental life and geography, he was awarded the Patron's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his exploration of the source of the Amu Darya (Oxus). His journeys allowed him to study the problems of Asia and their implications for British India, whilst reinforcing his pride in his nation and her imperial mission.

Curzon believed Russia to be the most likely threat to India, Britain's most valuable colony, from the 19th century through the early 20th century.[13] In 1879 Russia had begun construction of the Transcaspian Railway along the Silk Road, officially solely to enforce local control. The line starts from the city of Kzyzl Su (Krasnovodsk) (nowadays Turkmenbashi) (on the Caspian Sea), travels southeast along the Karakum Desert, through Ashgabat, continues along the Kopet Dagh Mountains until it reaches Tejen. Curzon dedicated an entire chapter in his book Russia in Central Asia to discussing the perceived threat to British control of India.[14] This railway connected Russia with the most wealthy and influential cities in Central Asia at the time, including the Persian province of Khorasan,[15] and would allow the rapid deployment of Russian supplies and troops into the area. Curzon also believed that the resulting greater economic interdependence between Russia and Central Asia would be damaging to British interests.[16]

Persia and the Persian Question, written in 1892, has been considered Curzon's magnum opus and can be seen as a sequel to Russia in Central Asia.[17] Curzon was commissioned by The Times to write several articles on the Persian political environment, but while there he decided to write a book on the country as whole. This two-volume work covers Persia's history and governmental structure, as well as graphics, maps and pictures (some taken by Curzon himself). Curzon was aided by General Albert Houtum-Schindler and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), both of which helped him gain access to material to which as a foreigner he would not have been entitled to have access. General Schindler provided Curzon with information regarding Persia's geography and resources, as well as serving as an unofficial editor.[18]

Curzon was appalled by his government's apathy towards Persia as a valuable defensive buffer to India from Russian encroachment.[19] Years later Curzon would lament that "Persia has alternatively advanced and receded in the estimation of British statesmen, occupying now a position of extravagant prominence, anon one of unmerited obscurity."[20]

Mary Victoria Leiter by Alexandre Cabanel, 1887

In 1895 he married Mary Victoria Leiter, the daughter of Levi Ziegler Leiter, an American millionaire [4]of German Mennonite origin and co-founder of the Chicago department store Field & Leiter (later Marshall Field). Initially, he had just married her for her money so he could save his estate but ended up nursing feelings for her. Mary had a long and nearly fatal illness near the end of summer 1904, from which she never really recovered. Falling ill again in July 1906, she died on the 18th of that month in her husband's arms, at the age of 36.[21] It was the greatest personal loss of his life.

She was buried in the church at Kedleston, where Curzon designed his memorial for her, a Gothic chapel added to the north side of the nave. Although he was neither a devout nor a conventional churchman, Curzon retained a simple religious faith; in later years he sometimes said that he was not afraid of death because it would enable him to join Mary in heaven.

They had three daughters during a firm and happy marriage: Mary Irene, who inherited her father's Barony of Ravensdale and was created a life peer in her own right; Cynthia, who became the first wife of the fascist politician Sir Oswald Mosley; and Alexandra Naldera ("Baba"), who married Edward "Fruity" Metcalfe, the best friend, best man and equerry of Edward VIII. Mosley exercised a strange fascination for the Curzon women: Irene had a brief romance with him before either were married; Baba became his mistress; and Curzon's second wife, Grace, had a long affair with him.

Curzon—procession to Sanchi Tope, 28 November 1899.

Curzon and Madho Rao Scindia, Maharaja of Gwalior, pose with hunted tigers, 1901.

Curzon and his wife and staff on tour of the Persian Gulf in 1903

In January 1899 he was appointed Viceroy of India.[4] He was created a Peer of Ireland as Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby,[22] on his appointment. This peerage was created in the Peerage of Ireland (the last so created) so that he would be free, until his father's death, to re-enter the House of Commons on his return to Britain.

Reaching India shortly after the suppression of the frontier risings of 1897–98, he paid special attention to the independent tribes of the north-west frontier, inaugurated a new province called the North West Frontier Province, and pursued a policy of forceful control mingled with conciliation. The only major armed outbreak on this frontier during the period of his administration was the Mahsud–Waziri campaign of 1901.

In the context of the Great Game between the British and Russian Empires for control of Central Asia, he held deep mistrust of Russian intentions. This led him to encourage British trade in Persia, and he paid a visit to the Persian Gulf in 1903. Curzon argued for an exclusive British presence in the Gulf, a policy originally proposed by John Malcolm. The British government was already making agreements with local sheiks/tribal leaders along the Persian Gulf coast to this end. Curzon had convinced his government to establish Britain as the unofficial protector of Kuwait with the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899. The Lansdowne Declaration in 1903 stated that the British would counter any other European power's attempt to establish a military presence in the Gulf.[23] Only four years later this position was abandoned and the Persian Gulf declared a neutral zone in the Anglo-Russian Agreement of 1907, prompted in part by the high economic cost of defending India from Russian advances.[24]

At the end of 1903, Curzon sent a British expedition to Tibet under Francis Younghusband, ostensibly to forestall a Russian advance. After bloody conflicts with Tibet's poorly armed defenders, the mission penetrated to Lhasa, where the Treaty of Lhasa was signed in September 1904.[25]

During his tenure, Curzon undertook the restoration of the Taj Mahal and expressed satisfaction that he had done so.

Within India, Curzon appointed a number of commissions to inquire into education, irrigation, police and other branches of administration, on whose reports legislation was based during his second term of office as viceroy. Reappointed Governor-General in August 1904, he presided over the 1905 partition of Bengal, which roused such bitter opposition among the people of the province that it was later revoked (1911).[26]

Arthur Balfour's refusal to recommend an earldom for Curzon in 1905 was repeated by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Prime Minister, who formed his government the day after Curzon returned to England. In deference to the wishes of the King and the advice of his doctors, Curzon did not stand in the general election of 1906 and thus found himself excluded from public life for the first time in twenty years. It was at this time, the nadir of his career, that he suffered the greatest personal loss of his life. Mary died in 1906 and Curzon devoted himself to private matters, including establishing a new home. After the death of Lord Goschen in 1907, the post of Chancellor of Oxford University fell vacant. Curzon successfully became elected as Chancellor of Oxford after he won by 1001 votes to 440 against Lord Rosebery.[35] He proved to be quite an active Chancellor – "[he] threw himself so energetically into the cause of university reform that critics complained he was ruling Oxford like an Indian province."[36]

In 1908, Curzon was elected a representative peer for Ireland, and thus relinquished any idea of returning to the House of Commons.[4] In 1909–1910 he took an active part in opposing the Liberal government's[4] proposal to abolish the legislative veto of the House of Lords, and in 1911 was created Baron Ravensdale, of Ravensdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to his daughters, Viscount Scarsdale, of Scarsdale in the County of Derby, with remainder (in default of heirs male) to the heirs male of his father, and Earl Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, with the normal remainder, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[37]

He became involved with saving Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, from destruction. This experience strengthened his resolve for heritage protection. He was one of the sponsors of the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act 1913.[38]

On 5 May 1914, he spoke out against a bill in the House of Lords that would have permitted women who already had the right to vote in local elections the right to vote for members of Parliament.

Lord Curzon of Kedleston by John Singer Sargent, 1914. Royal Geographical Society

Curzon joined the Cabinet, as Lord Privy Seal, when Asquith formed his coalition in May 1915.

Like other politicians (e.g. Austen Chamberlain, Arthur Balfour) Curzon favoured British Empire efforts in Mesopotamia, believing that the increase in British prestige would discourage a German-inspired Muslim revolt in India.[39]

Curzon was a member of the Dardanelles Committee and told that body (October 1915) that the recent Salonika expedition was "quixotic chivalry".[40]

Early in 1916 Curzon visited Sir Douglas Haig (newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France) at his headquarters in France. Haig was impressed by Curzon's brains and decisiveness, considering that he had mellowed since his days as Viceroy (the then Major-General Haig had been Inspector-General of Cavalry, India, at the time) and had lost "his old pompous ways".[41]

Curzon served in Lloyd George's small War Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords from December 1916, and he also served on the War Policy Committee. With Allied victory over Germany far from certain, Curzon wrote a paper (12 May 1917) for the War Cabinet urging that Britain seize Palestine and possibly Syria.[42] However, like other members of the War Cabinet, Curzon supported further Western Front offensives lest, with Russian commitment to the war wavering, France and Italy be tempted to make a separate peace. At the War Policy Committee (3 October 1917) Curzon objected in vain to plans to redeploy two divisions to Palestine, with a view to advancing into Syria and knocking Turkey out of the war altogether. Curzon's commitment wavered somewhat as the losses of Third Ypres mounted.[43] In the summer of 1917 the CIGS General Robertson sent Haig a biting description of the members of the War Cabinet, who he said were all frightened of Lloyd George; he described Curzon as "a gasbag".

During the crisis of February 1918, Curzon was one of the few members of the government to support Robertson, threatening in vain to resign if he were removed.[44]

Despite his continued opposition to votes for women (he had been co-president of the National League for Opposing Woman Suffrage), the House of Lords voted conclusively in its favour.

Grace Elvina, second wife

After a long affair with the romantic novelist Elinor Glyn, Curzon married the former Grace Elvina Hinds in January 1917. She was the wealthy Alabama-born widow of Alfredo Huberto Duggan (died 1915), a first-generation Irish Argentinian appointed to the Argentine Legation in London in 1905. Elinor Glyn was staying with Curzon at the time of the engagement and read about it in the morning newspapers.

Grace had three children from her first marriage, two sons, Alfred and Hubert, and a daughter, Grace Lucille. Alfred and Hubert, as Curzon's step-sons, grew up within his influential circle. Curzon had three daughters from his first marriage, but he and Grace (despite fertility-related operations and several miscarriages) did not have any children together, which put a strain on their marriage. Letters written between them in the early 1920s imply that they still lived together, and remained devoted to each other. In 1923, Curzon was passed over for the office of Prime Minister partly on the advice of Arthur Balfour, who joked that Curzon "has lost the hope of glory but he still possesses the means of Grace" (a humorous allusion to the well known "General Thanksgiving" prayer of the Church of England, which thanks God for "the means of grace, and for the hope of glory").[45]

In 1917, Curzon bought Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, a 14th-century building that had been gutted during the English Civil War. He restored it extensively, and then bequeathed it to the National Trust.[46]

Curzon c. 1920–1925

On Bonar Law's retirement as prime minister in May 1923, Curzon was passed over for the job in favour of Stanley Baldwin, despite his eagerness for the job.

This decision was taken on the private advice of leading members of the party including former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour. Balfour advised the monarch that in a democratic age it was inappropriate for the prime minister to be a member of the House of Lords, especially when the Labour Party, which had few peers, had become the main opposition party in the Commons. In private Balfour admitted that he was prejudiced against Curzon, whose character was objectionable to some. George V shared this prejudice. A letter purporting to detail the opinions of Bonar Law but actually written by Baldwin sympathisers was delivered to the King's Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham, though it is unclear how much impact this had in the final outcome. Curzon felt he was cheated because J. C. C. Davidson—to whom Baldwin was loyal—and Sir Charles Waterhouse falsely claimed to Stamfordham that Law had recommended that George V appoint Stanley Baldwin, not Curzon, as his successor.[64] Harry Bennett says Curzon's arrogance and unpopularity probably prevented him from becoming prime minister despite his brilliance, great capacity for work, and prior accomplishments.[65]

Winston Churchill, one of Curzon's main rivals, accurately contended that Curzon "sow[ed] gratitude and resentment along his path with equally lavish hands".[66] However, even contemporaries who envied Curzon, such as Baldwin, conceded that Curzon was, in the words of his biographer Leonard Mosley, "a devoted and indefatigable public servant, dedicated to the idea of Empire".[67]

Curzon, summoned by Stamfordham, rushed to London assuming he was to be appointed. He burst into tears when told the truth. He later ridiculed Baldwin as "a man of the utmost insignificance", although he served under Baldwin and proposed him for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Curzon remained foreign secretary under Baldwin until the government fell in January 1924. When Baldwin formed a new government in November 1924 he appointed Curzon Lord President of the Council.

Curzon's rejection was a turning point in the nation's political history. Henceforth Lords were barred from leading political parties and becoming prime minister. It was now an age of democracy that made it unacceptable for the prime minister to be based in an unelected and largely powerless chamber.[68]

The last photograph taken of Curzon on his way to attend a cabinet meeting (1925)

In March 1925 Curzon suffered a severe haemorrhage of the bladder. Surgery was unsuccessful and he died in London on 20 March 1925 at the age of 66. His coffin, made from the same tree at Kedleston that had encased his first wife, Mary, was taken to Westminster Abbey and from there to his ancestral home in Derbyshire, where he was interred beside Mary in the family vault at All Saints Church on 26 March. In his will, proven on 22 July, Curzon bequeathed his estate to his wife and his brother Francis; his estate was valued for probate at £343,279 10s. 4d. (roughly equivalent to £19,723,149 in 2019)[69].[70]

Upon his death the Barony, Earldom and Marquessate of Curzon of Kedleston and the Earldom of Kedleston became extinct, whilst the Viscountcy and Barony of Scarsdale were inherited by a nephew. The Barony of Ravensdale was inherited by his eldest daughter Mary and is today held by his second daughter Cynthia's great-grandson, Daniel Nicholas Mosley, 4th Baron Ravensdale.

There is now a blue plaque on the house in London where Curzon lived and died, No. 1 Carlton House Terrace, Westminster.[71]

On his appointment as Viceroy of India in 1898, he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby. This title was created in the Peerage of Ireland to enable him to potentially return to the House of Commons, as Irish peers did not have an automatic right to sit in the House of Lords. His was the last title to be created in the Peerage of Ireland. In 1908, he was elected a representative of the Irish peerage in the British House of Lords, from which it followed that he would be a member of the House of Lords until death; indeed, his representative peerage would continue even if (as proved to be the case) he later received a United Kingdom peerage entitling him to a seat in the House of Lords in his own right.

In 1911 he was created Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Viscount Scarsdale, and Baron Ravensdale. All of these titles were in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

Upon his father's death in 1916, he also became 5th Baron Scarsdale, in the Peerage of Great Britain. The title had been created in 1761.

In the 1921 Birthday Honours, he was created Marquess Curzon of Kedleston.[72] The title became extinct upon his death in 1925, as he was survived by three daughters and no sons.[73]

Few statesmen have experienced such changes in fortune in both their public and their personal lives. David Gilmour concludes:

Curzon's career was an almost unparalleled blend of triumph and disappointment. Although he was the last and in many ways the greatest of Victorian viceroys, his term of office ended in resignation, empty of recognition and barren of reward.... he was unable to assert himself fully as Foreign Secretary until the last weeks of Lloyd George's premiership. And finally, after he had restored his reputation at Lausanne, his last ambition was thwarted by George V.[36]

Critics generally agreed that Curzon never reached the heights that his youthful talents had seemed destined to reach. This sense of opportunities missed was summed up by Winston Churchill in his book Great Contemporaries (1937):

The morning had been golden; the noontide was bronze; and the evening lead. But all were polished till it shone after its fashion.

Churchill also wrote there was certainly something lacking in Curzon:

it was certainly not information nor application, nor power of speech nor attractiveness of manner and appearance. Everything was in his equipment. You could unpack his knapsack and take an inventory item by item. Nothing on the list was missing, yet somehow or other the total was incomplete.[74]

His Cabinet colleague The Earl of Crawford provided a withering personal judgment in his diary; "I never knew a man less loved by his colleagues and more hated by his subordinates, never a man so bereft of conscience, of charity or of gratitude. On the other hand the combination of power, of industry, and of ambition with a mean personality is almost without parallel. I never attended a funeral ceremony at which the congregation was so dry-eyed!"[75]

The first leader of independent India, Jawaharlal Nehru, paid Curzon a surprising tribute, referring to the fact that Curzon as Viceroy exhibited real love of Indian culture and ordered a restoration project for several historic monuments, including the Taj Mahal:[76]

After every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India.[77]

By special remainders, although he had no son, two of Curzon's peerages survive to the present day. His barony of Ravensdale went first to his eldest daughter, Irene Curzon, 2nd Baroness Ravensdale, and then to his grandson Nicholas Mosley, both of whom sat in the House of Lords, while his Viscount Scarsdale title went to a nephew. His great-great-grandson Daniel Mosley, 4th Baron Ravensdale, is a current member of the House of Lords, having been elected as a representative hereditary peer.

Curzon Hall, the home of the faculty of science at the University of Dhaka, is named after him. Lord Curzon himself inaugurated the building in 1904.

Curzon Gate, a ceremonial gate, was erected by Maharaja Bijay Chand Mahatab in the heart of Burdwan town and was renamed to commemorate Lord Curzon's visit to the town in 1904, which was renamed as Bijay Toran after the independence of India in 1947.

In Kolkata, which was, as Calcutta, the capital of British India during Curzon's tenure as viceroy, Curzon park was named in his honour. It has since been renamed as Surendranath Park, but the old name is still in popular use.

Curzon Road, the road connecting India Gate, the memorial dedicated to the Indian fallen during the Great War of 1914–18, and Connaught Place, in New Delhi was named after him. It has since been renamed Kasturba Gandhi Marg. The apartment buildings on the same road are still named after him.

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