George Nathaniel Curzon

(b. Keddlestone, Derbyshire, 11 Jan. 1859; d. 20 Mar. 1925) British; Viceroy of India 1899 – 1905, Foreign Secretary 1919 – 24, Irish rep. peer 1908, Earl 1911, Marquess 1922 Educated at Eton and Oxford, Curzon became a fellow of All Souls in 1883. Destined — not least in his own eyes — for greatness, he established a reputation for his knowledge of foreign affairs. He travelled extensively — publishing a work on Persia in 1892 — and in 1891, five years after entering the House of Commons as Conservative member for Southport, was appointed Under-Secretary of State at the India Office; in 1895 he was made Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, answering for the department in the Commons while Foreign Secretary (and Prime Minister) Lord Salisbury was in the Lords. In 1898, at the age of 39, he achieved one of his life's greatest ambitions — to be Viceroy of India. An able administrator but a vain man, his viceroyship ended abruptly after a clash with the military commander, Lord Kitchener.

He was created an Irish peer in order to resume his political career, but for several years there was no career to pursue. His wife died in 1906 and he spent much of his time absorbed in interests outside politics. Some compensaton came in 1911 when he was created an earl, but it was to be another four years before he returned to public office.

His restoration to high office came in 1915 when he entered Asquith's coalition as Lord Privy Seal, before serving briefly as President of the Air Board in 1916 and then for three years as Lord President of the Council. He served as a member of the inner War Cabinet throughout its existence (December 1916 to October 1919). He also took over leadership of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords. In 1919, he succeeded Balfour as Foreign Secretary. It was a post to which his experience, sense of superiority, and ambition lent itself — he was only one step from his ultimate goal, that of the premiership.

The ultimate goal was denied him in 1923, when the King decided that a Prime Minister could not serve in a house in which the official Opposition party was not represented. He carried on as Foreign Secretary until the party was defeated at the polls. On the party's return to power in 1924, Baldwin made him Lord President of the Council. He died the following year at the age of 66, a disappointed man. His life was a story of achievement — commoner to Marquess, Viceroy, Foreign Secretary — but not to the extent to which he considered himself destined.

The English statesman George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859-1925), served as viceroy of India and as a member of several Cabinets.

High offices in the British political and imperial structure at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were generally held by men chosen on the basis of highly restrictive family and educational connections. George Curzon was the epitome of this system, and it was useful to his political and social ambitions before World War I. Afterward, however, he was hurt by his connection with it and by his inconsistent actions that bordered on opportunism in his late drive for government leadership.

Curzon was born on Jan. 11, 1859, at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire. His early life was dominated by the influence of a governess and a schoolmaster who were both strict disciplinarians; those years were not very happy ones for him, but he did exceptionally well at school. He was a leader and an outstanding student at Eton from 1872 to 1878 and at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1878 to 1882, although he was disappointed when he missed getting every honor. With an aristocratic appearance and a bearing that commanded attention, he put unrestrained energy into his work and was not satisfied unless he was in the center of every situation.

In the 3 years after leaving Oxford, Curzon traveled extensively in the Mediterranean world and used the knowledge he acquired to write articles on important issues. In 1885 Lord Salisbury, the prime minister, chose him as his assistant private secretary. Curzon lost his first election that year, but he won a seat the next year in the House of Commons. From 1887 to 1894 he continued to travel widely, choosing Asia as his particular interest and writing three outstanding books on Asian affairs: Russia in Central Asia (1889), Persia and the Persian Question (1892), and Problems of the Far East (1894).

Curzon began his government service in 1891 as undersecretary in the India office in Salisbury's government. The government fell from power in 1892, but when the Conservatives came in again in 1895, Curzon was named parliamentary undersecretary in the Foreign Office, directly under Salisbury, who was both prime minister and foreign secretary. Curzon was the principal government spokesman on foreign affairs in the House of Commons.

Viceroy of India

Curzon was chosen viceroy of India in 1898. This position was perfectly suited to his desire for public attention, since he was in charge of the entire British administration of the Indian empire. He stayed in India for 7 years, ruling firmly in matters of domestic policy and making strong appeals in matters of foreign policy. In the latter, Curzon was particularly involved in the problem of defense along India's frontiers and in those areas of possible danger from Russian expansion and competition - Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.

Military matters were Curzon's undoing. He and Lord Kitchener, the commander in chief of the Indian army after 1902, became locked in a dispute over military organization; the government in England, then under Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, chose to sacrifice Curzon in favor of Kitchener, who was a more popular figure. Curzon returned to Britain in late 1905, out of favor with his own Conservative party leadership and, since the Liberals were coming into power, with no opportunity of remaking his reputation in another government assignment.

War Cabinet and Foreign Office

Curzon was out of politics except as a member of the House of Lords, until he was included in the wartime coalition government formed in May 1915. When David Lloyd George became prime minister in December 1916, Curzon was brought into the five-man War Cabinet, and he participated in all the major decisions of the latter part of World War I. He was given the task of running the Foreign Office through most of 1919, while Lloyd George and the foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, were at the Paris peace conference, and in late 1919 he was named as Balfour's successor in the Foreign Office.

Curzon's service in the War Cabinet and as foreign secretary was the second peak in his career. But his role in the Foreign Office in the postwar era was not so satisfactory to Curzon as it would have been in an earlier era. British government was changing, and concentration of authority in the prime minister's hands had increased tremendously under Lloyd George's personal control and the emergency of wartime government. Curzon was a leading candidate for prime minister in May 1923; he was disappointed at the last moment, however, and Stanley Baldwin was chosen instead. Curzon was dismayed, but he stayed on to serve under Baldwin in the same post until the government fell in January 1924. Curzon's public service ended then, and he died on March 20, 1925.

Further Reading

The most complete work on Curzon is the Earl of Ronaldshay, The Life of Lord Curzon (3 vols., 1928). Two studies which are old but still worthwhile are Harold Nicolson, Curzon, the Last Phase, 1919-1925: A Study in Post-war Diplomacy (1934), and Arthur Anthony Baumann's sketch in Humbert Wolfe, ed., Personalities: A Selection from the Writings of A. A. Baumann (1936). Two other books essential to a full understanding of Curzon as a man are Leonard Mosley, The Glorious Fault: The Life of Lord Curzon (1960; published in England as Curzon: The End of an Epoch), and Kenneth Rose, Superior Person (1969). Michael Edwardes, High Noon of Empire: India under Curzon (1965), deals with India while Curzon was viceroy. Recommended for general historical background are R. C. K. Ensor, England, 1870-1914 (1936); Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, eds., The Diplomats, 1919-1939 (1953); The Cambridge History of the British Empire, vol. 3: E. A. Benians and others, eds., The Empire-Commonwealth, 1870-1919 (1959); and A. J. P. Taylor, English History, 1914-1945 (1965).

Additional Sources

Curzon, George Nathaniel Curzon, Marquis of, 1859-1925, A viceroy's India: leaves from Lord Curzon's note-book, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984.

Gilmour, David, Curzon, London: J. Murray, 1994 (1995 printing).

Goradia, Nayana, Lord Curzon: the last of the British Moghuls, Delhi; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Parker, James G., Lord Curzon, 1859-1925: a bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Rose, Kenneth, Curzon, a most superior person: a biography, London: Papermac, 1985.

1859 - 1925

English statesman who stressed Iran's strategic importance to Britain.

Born in Britain, George Nathaniel Curzon, the Viscount of Keddelston, was emerging as a British authority on the Middle East when he traveled to Iran in 1889 as a newspaper correspondent. During the six months he spent traveling throughout the country on horseback, he became impressed with Iran's importance to the strategic defense of British India. Russia had become Britain's principal imperial rival in central Asia, and Curzon perceived Russian interests in the region as being inimical to those of Britain. In his monumental work, Persia and the Persian Question, he argued that Britain should protect Iran, the gateway to India, from European (and especially Russian) encroachments. The book also contained insightful descriptions of Iran's politics and society at the end of the nineteenth century.

Following his tour of Iran, Curzon was appointed foreign office undersecretary for India and subsequently viceroy of India. As the de facto British ruler of India from 1899 to 1905, he played a major role in shaping policy toward Iran, which fell under the purview of the India office. In 1903, Curzon made a ceremonial naval visit to the Persian Gulf that he viewed as intended to convey to Russia the extent of British power in the area.

Curzon was appointed to the House of Lords after he returned home in 1905. He distrusted efforts by the government to establish an understanding with Russia and opposed the Anglo - Russian Agreement (1907), which he criticized for abandoning British interests in Iran to Russia. After World War I, he was appointed foreign secretary. He was the architect of the Anglo - Iranian Agreement (1919), which would have made Iran a virtual British protectorate; much to his disappointment, the Iranian parliament failed to approve the controversial treaty.

Bibliography

Bennett, G. H. British Foreign Policy during the Curzon Period,1919 - 24. New York: St. Martin's Press in association with King's College, London, 1995.

Curzon, G. N. Persia and the Persian Question. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892.

Gilmour, David. Curzon: Imperial Statesman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.

— ERIC HOOGLUND