George Nathaniel Curzon

The Most Honourable The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston KG GCSI GCIE PC
The Lord Curzon of Kedleston as Viceroy of India
Viceroy and Governor-General of India
In office 6 January 1899 – 18 November 1905
Monarch	Victoria Edward VII
Deputy	The Lord Ampthill
Preceded by	The Earl of Elgin
Succeeded by	The Earl of Minto
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office 23 October 1919 – 22 January 1924
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George Andrew Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	Arthur Balfour
Succeeded by	Ramsay MacDonald
Leader of the House of Lords
In office 3 November 1924 – 20 March 1925
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	The Viscount Haldane
Succeeded by	The Marquess of Salisbury
In office 10 December 1916 – 22 January 1924
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George Andrew Bonar Law Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	The Marquess of Crewe
Succeeded by	The Viscount Haldane
Lord President of the Council
In office 10 December 1916 – 23 October 1919
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Marquess of Crewe
Succeeded by	Arthur Balfour
In office 3 November 1924 – 20 March 1925
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	Stanley Baldwin
Preceded by	The Lord Parmoor
Succeeded by	The Earl of Balfour
President of the Air Board
In office 15 May 1916 – 3 January 1917
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	H.H. Asquith David Lloyd George
Preceded by	The Earl of Derby
Succeeded by	The Viscount Cowdray
Personal details
Born	George Nathaniel Curzon (1859-01-11)11 January 1859 Kedleston, Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Died	20 March 1925(1925-03-20) (aged 66) London, United Kingdom
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Mary Curzon (1895–1906; her death) Grace Curzon (1917–25)
Children	Mary Irene Cynthia Blanche Alexandra Naldera
Alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford

George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC (11 January 1859 – 20 March 1925), known as The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and as The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman.

As Viceroy of India, he is noted for the creation of Eastern Bengal and Assam. As Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he drew the Curzon Line as the proposed eastern frontier of Poland. He was passed over as Prime Minister in 1923 in favour of Stanley Baldwin. His character polarised opinion amongst his contemporaries, "sow[ing] gratitude and resentment along his path with equally lavish hands". He quarrelled endlessly and his arrogance and inflexibility made even more enemies. Critics have been negative in contrasting his enormous talents and energy on behalf of British imperialism with his mixed results and unrealized ambitions.

Lord Curzon was the eldest son and second of eleven children of Alfred Curzon, the 4th Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), Rector of Kedleston in Derbyshire, and his wife Blanche (1837–1875), 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, worn out by childbirth, died when George was 16; her husband survived her by 41 years. Neither parent exerted a major influence on Curzon's life. Lord Scarsdale was an austere and unindulgent father who believed in the short-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 governess, Ellen Mary Paraman, whose tyranny in the nursery stimulated his combative qualities and encouraged the obsessional side of his nature. Paraman 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."