Curzon (of Kedleston), George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquis 1859-1925
English statesman

Born in Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, he was educated at Eton and Oxford. In 1886 he was elected MP for Southport, and the following year began extensive travels all over the East which provided material for three authoritative books, on Asiatic Russia (1889), on Persia (1892) and on problems of the Far East (1894). He became Under-Secretary for India in 1891, and for Foreign Affairs in 1895. In 1898, aged only 39, he became Viceroy of India and was given an Irish barony, having been unwilling to accept an English peerage with its accompanying bar from the House of Commons. A controversial and often turbulent viceroy, constantly at war with his officials, he introduced many reforms, both social and political, including the establishment of the NW Frontier Province and the partition of Bengal. After the arrival of Lord Kitchener as Commander-in-Chief in 1902, a difference of opinion arose which led to Curzon's resignation in 1905. He devoted himself to art and archaeology and to the question of university reform, returned to politics as Lord Privy Seal in the Coalition of 1915, and became a member of David Lloyd George's War Cabinet in 1916. In 1919 his long-standing ambition to become Foreign Secretary was fulfilled. On the resignation of Bonar Law in May 1923 he clearly hoped for and expected the premiership; the choice of Stanley Baldwin was a great blow, but he offered his support and continued as Foreign Secretary until 1924. He was created a marquis in 1921.

Bibliography: Earl of Ronaldshay, The Life of Lord Curzon (3 vols, 1928)