George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
George
Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, FBA (11
January 1859 – 20 March 1925), who was styled as Lord Curzon of Kedleston
between 1898 and 1911, and as Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921,
and was known commonly as Lord Curzon, was a British Conservative statesman who
served as Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, during which time he created the
territory of Eastern Bengal and Assam, and fought with the British military
commander Lord Kitchener. During the First World War he served in the small War
Cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George as Leader of the House of Lords
(from December 1916), as well as the War Policy Committee. He served as
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1919 to 1924.
Despite his
successes as both Viceroy and Foreign Secretary, in 1923 Curzon was denied the
office of prime minister. Bonar Law and other Conservative Party leaders
preferred to have Stanley Baldwin rather than Curzon as prime minister and
these views were made known to King George V. Sir David Gilmour, in his
biography Curzon: Imperial Statesman (1994), contends that Curzon deserved the
top position.
Early life
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."
Curzon at
Eton, 1870s
He was
educated at Wixenford School, Eton College, and Balliol College, Oxford. At
Eton, he was a favourite of Oscar Browning, an over-intimate relationship that
led to his tutor's dismissal. 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.
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 and Arnold Prizes, 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.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.” 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.
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. 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'.
Early
political career
Curzon
became Assistant Private Secretary to Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered
Parliament as Member for Southport in south-west Lancashire. 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.
Asian
travels and writings
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. 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. In 1879 Russia
had begun construction of the Transcaspian Railroad 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. This railroad connected Russia with the most wealthy and
influential cities in Central Asia at the time, including the Persian province
of Khorasan, 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.
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. 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.
Curzon was
appalled by his government's apathy towards Persia as a valuable defensive
buffer to India from Russian encroachment. 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."
First
marriage (1895–1906)
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. 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.
Viceroy of
India (1899–1905)
In January
1899 he was appointed Viceroy of India. He was created a Peer of Ireland as
Baron Curzon of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, 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. 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.
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 a treaty was
signed in September 1904. No Russian presence was found in Lhasa.
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).
Indian Army
Curzon also
took an active interest in military matters. In 1901, he founded the Imperial
Cadet Corps, or ICC. The ICC was a corps d'elite, designed to give Indian
princes and aristocrats military training, after which a few would be given
officer commissions in the Indian Army. But these commissions were
"special commissions" which did not empower their holders to command
any troops. Predictably, this was a major stumbling block to the ICC's success,
as it caused much resentment among former cadets. Though the ICC closed in
1914, it was a crucial stage in the drive to Indianise the Indian Army's
officer Corps, which was haltingly begun in 1917.
Military
organisation proved to be the final issue faced by Curzon in India. It often
involved petty issues that had much to do with clashes of personality: Curzon
once wrote on a document "I rise from the perusal of these papers filled
with the sense of the ineptitude of my military advisers", and once wrote
to the Commander-in-Chief in India, Kitchener, advising him that signing
himself "Kitchener of Khartoum" took up too much time and space,
which Kitchener thought petty (Curzon simply signed himself "Curzon"
as if he were a hereditary peer, although he later took to signing himself
"Curzon of Kedleston"). A difference of opinion with Kitchener,
regarding the status of the military member of the council in India (who
controlled army supply and logistics, which Kitchener wanted under his own
control), led to a controversy in which Curzon failed to obtain the support of
the home government. He resigned in August 1905 and returned to England.
Indian
famine
A major
famine coincided with Curzon's time as viceroy in which 1 to 4.5 million people
died. Large parts of India were affected and millions died, and Curzon has been
criticised for allegedly having done little to fight the famine. Curzon did
implement a variety of measures, including opening up famine relief works that
fed between 3 and 5 million, reducing taxes and spending vast amounts of money
on irrigation works. But he also stated that "any government which
imperiled the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal
philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any government which by
indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the fibre and demoralized the self-reliance
of the population, would be guilty of a public crime." He also cut back
rations that he characterized as "dangerously high" and stiffened
relief eligibility by reinstating the Temple tests.
Return to
Britain
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.[34] 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."
House of
Lords
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.
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.
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.
First World
War
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.
Curzon was
a member of the Dardanelles Committee and told that body (October 1915) that
the recent Salonika expedition was "quixotic chivalry".
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".
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. 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. 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.
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.
Second
marriage (1917)
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").
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, then
bequeathed it to the National Trust.
Foreign
Secretary (1919–24)
Relations
with Lloyd George
Curzon did
not have David Lloyd George's support. Curzon and Lloyd George had disliked one
another since the 1911 Parliament Crisis. The Prime Minister thought him overly
pompous and self-important, and it was said that he used him as if he were
using a Rolls-Royce to deliver a parcel to the station; Lloyd George said much
later that Churchill treated his Ministers in a way that Lloyd George would
never have treated his: "They were all men of substance — well, except
Curzon."[46] Multiple drafts of resignation letters written at this time
were found upon Curzon's death. Despite their antagonism, the two were often in
agreement on government policy.Lloyd George needed the wealth of knowledge
Curzon possessed so was both his biggest critic and, simultaneously, his
largest supporter. Likewise, Curzon was grateful for the leeway he was allowed
by Lloyd George when it came to handling affairs in the Middle East.
Other
cabinet ministers also respected his vast knowledge of Central Asia but
disliked his arrogance and often blunt criticism. Believing that the Foreign
Secretary should be non-partisan, he would objectively present all the
information on a subject to the Cabinet, as if placing faith in his colleagues
to reach the appropriate decision. Conversely, Curzon would take personally and
respond aggressively to any criticism.
It has been
suggested that Curzon's defensiveness reflected institutional insecurity by the
Foreign Office as a whole. During the 1920s the Foreign Office was often a
passive participant in decisions which were mainly reactive and dominated by
the Prime Minister. The creation of the job of Colonial Secretary, the Cabinet
Secretariat and the League of Nations added to the Foreign Office's insecurity.
Policy
under Lloyd George
After nine
months as acting Secretary while Balfour was at the Paris Peace Conference,
Curzon was appointed Foreign Secretary in October 1919. He gave his name to the
British government's proposed Soviet-Polish boundary, the Curzon Line of
December 1919. Although during the subsequent Polish-Soviet War, Poland
conquered ground in the east, after World War II, Poland was shifted westwards,
leaving the border between Poland and its eastern neighbours today
approximately at the Curzon Line.
Curzon was
largely responsible for the Peace Day ceremonies on 19 July 1919. These
included the plaster Cenotaph, designed by the noted British architect Sir
Edwin Lutyens, for the Allied Victory parade in London. It was so successful that
it was reproduced in stone, and still stands.
In 1918,
during World War I, as Britain occupied Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Curzon tried
to convince the Indian government to reconsider his scheme for Persia (Iran) to
be a buffer against Russian advances. British and Indian troops were in Persia
protecting the oilfields at Abadan and watching the Afghan frontier – Curzon
believed that British economic and military aid, sent via India, could prop up
the Persian government and make her a British client state. However, the
agreement of August 1919 was never ratified and the British government rejected
the plan as Russia had the geographical advantage and the defensive benefits
would not justify the high economic cost.
Small
British forces had twice occupied Baku on the Caspian in 1918, while an entire
British division had occupied Batum on the Black Sea, supervising German and
Turkish withdrawal. Against Curzon's wishes, but on the advice of Sir George
Milne, the commander on the spot, the CIGS Henry Wilson, who wanted to
concentrate troops in Britain, Ireland, India, and Egypt,[56] and of Churchill
(Secretary of State for War), the British withdrew from Baku (the small British
naval presence was also withdrawn from the Caspian Sea), at the end of August
1919 leaving only 3 battalions at Batum.
In January
1920 Curzon insisted that British troops remain in Batum, against the wishes of
Wilson and the Prime Minister. In February, while Curzon was on holiday, Wilson
persuaded the Cabinet to allow withdrawal, but Curzon had the decision reversed
on his return, although to Curzon's fury (he thought it "abuse of
authority") Wilson gave Milne permission to withdraw if he deemed it
necessary. At Cabinet on 5 May 1920 Curzon "by a long-winded jaw" (in
Wilson's description) argued for a stay in Batum. After a British garrison at
Enzeli (on the Persian Caspian coast) was taken prisoner by Bolshevik forces on
19 May 1920, Lloyd George finally insisted on a withdrawal from Batum early in
June 1920. For the rest of 1920 Curzon, supported by Milner (Colonial
Secretary), argued that Britain should retain control of Persia. When Wilson
asked (15 July 1920) to pull troops out of Persia to put down the rebellion in
Mesopotamia and Ireland, Lloyd George blocked the move, saying that Curzon
"would not stand it". In the end, financial retrenchment forced a
British withdrawal from Persia in the spring of 1921.
Curzon
worked on several Middle Eastern problems. He designed the Treaty of Sèvres
(August 10, 1920) between the victorious Allies and Ottoman Turkey. The treaty
abolished the Ottoman Empire and obliged Turkey to renounce all rights over
Arab Asia and North Africa. However a new government in Turkey under Kemal
Atatürk rejected the treaty. The Greeks invaded Turkey. Curzon tried and failed
to induce the Greeks to accept a compromise on the status of Smyrna and failed
to force the Turks to renounce their nationalist program. Lloyd George tried to
use force at Chanak but lost support and was forced to step down as prime minister.
Curzon remained as foreign minister and helped tie down loose ends in the
Middle East at the peace conference at Lausanne.
He helped
to negotiate Egyptian independence (granted in 1922) and the division of the
British Mandate of Palestine, despite the strong disagreement he held with the
policy of his predecessor Arthur Balfour, and helped create the Emirate of
Transjordan for Faisal's brother, which may also have delayed the problems
there. According to Sir David Gilmour, Curzon "was the only senior figure
in the British government at the time who foresaw that its policy would lead to
decades of Arab–Jewish hostility".
During the
Irish War of Independence, but before the introduction of martial law in
December 1920, Curzon suggested the "Indian" solution of blockading
villages and imposing collective fines for attacks on the police and army.
In 1921
Curzon was created Earl of Kedleston, in the County of Derby, and Marquess
Curzon of Kedleston.
In 1922, he
was the chief negotiator for the Allies of the Treaty of Lausanne, which
officially ended the war with the Ottoman Empire and defined the borders of
Turkey.
Under Bonar
Law
Unlike many
leading Conservative members of Lloyd George's Coalition Cabinet, Curzon ceased
to support Lloyd George over the Chanak Crisis and had just resigned when
Conservative backbenchers voted at the Carlton Club meeting to end the
Coalition in October 1922. Curzon was thus able to remain Foreign Secretary
when Bonar Law formed a purely Conservative ministry.
In 1922–23
Curzon had to negotiate with France after French troops occupied the Ruhr to
enforce the payment of German reparations; he described the French Prime
Minister (and former President) Raymond Poincaré as a "horrid little
man". Curzon had expansive ambitions and was not much happier with Bonar
Law, whose foreign policy was based on "retrenchment and withdrawal",
than he had been with Lloyd George. However he provided invaluable insight into
the Middle East and was instrumental in shaping British foreign policy in that
region.
Passed over
for prime minister, 1923
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 Lord Davidson—to whom Baldwin was loyal—and Sir Charles
Waterhouse falsely claimed to Lord Stamfordham that the resigned Prime Minister
Bonar Law had recommended that George V appoint Stanley Baldwin, not Curzon, as
his successor. 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.
Winston
Churchill, one of Curzon's main rivals, accurately contended that Curzon
"sow[ed] gratitude and resentment along his path with equally lavish
hands". 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".
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.
Death
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)
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.
Titles
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. The title became
extinct upon his death in 1925, as he was survived by three daughters and no
sons.
