The New Student's Reference Work/Curzon, George Nathaniel, Lord

Cur'zon, George Nathaniel, Lord, ex-viceroy and governor-general of British India, was born at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, England, on Jan. 11, 1859, and educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford. He entered Parliament in the Conservative interest in 1886, and was subsequently under-secretary of state for India and under-secretary for foreign affairs. Lord Curzon has traveled considerably and published a number of thoughtful books. In 1895 he married the eldest daughter of Mr. L. Z. Leiter, a Chicago millionaire. In 1898 he was appointed by the Marquis of Salisbury, Viceroy of India, a post which he has filled with high ability. His writings include Russia in Central Asia; Persia and the Persian Question; and Problems of the Far East. In 1898 he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston. His term of office as Indian Viceroy was extended. In June, 1905, difficulties over the new military scheme in India led to his resigning. The resignation was withdrawn upon solicitation of home-authorities, but in August controversy again reached an acute stage, and Lord Curzon finally relinquished office. He remained in India to receive the Prince and Princess of Wales. The London Times spoke of his work as “among the most brilliant and strenuous accomplished for the empire in our times,” and of his having infused into Indian civil administration a new spirit born of his own indomitable belief in reform and his own unshaken determination to carry it into practice. His speeches as Viceroy have been reprinted. Since his return to England he has been returned from an Irish constituency to the House of Lords, of which body, as a peer, he is already officially a member.