GREAT STATESMAN

Northern Advocate, 21 March 1925, Page 5

GREAT STATESMAN

GOES TO HIS REST.

MARQUESS CURZON.

A DISTINGUISHED CAREER

(Received 9 a.m.)

LONDON, March 20.

The death is announced of Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, K.G., who was 66 years of age. —A. and N.Z.

Marquess Curzon, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords, who was born at Kedleston on January 11, 1859, was Foreign Secretary from November, 1919, till January, 1924. He was previously Lord President of the Council from December, 1916, to November, 1919. He acted as Viceroy of India from 1898 to 1905. In the latter year difficulties over the new military scheme in India led to his resigning. His Viceroyalty was a period of strenuous activity and departmental reform. The Administration was overhauled and speeded up. The problems of railways and the frontier, education and police reform, agriculture, irrigation and famine were successfully tackled in turn, while ancient buildings were preserved and restored. An expedition to Lhassa was undertaken in 1904. Marquess Curzon's final administrative act, the partition of Bengal, in October, 1905, led to prolonged native agitation, which has since subsided. The deceased statesman was the eldest son of the late Lord Scarsdale and first entered Parliament in 1886 and took a prominent part in its deliberations. He soon became Under-Secretary for India and then for Foreign Affairs. Marquess Curzon travelled widely in the Far East and wrote several books appertaining to that region. He was created a peer in 1898. and in 1907 was elected Chancellor of Oxford University, in the following year becoming Lord Rector of Glasgow, beating Mr Lloyd George by 12 votes. His earldom was attained in 1911. Lady Curzon, who was an American by birth, died in 1906, and in 1917 Marquess Curzon married again, his second wife (Mrs Duggan) also belonging to the United States. During the Great War, particularly in its first year, Marquess Curzon delivered many stirring loyalist orations. When the Coalition Government was formed in May, 1915, he became Lord Privy Seal, joining the Lloyd George Ministry as Lord President of the Council in December, 1916. He became a member of the War Committee in July of the latter year. A marquisate was conferred upon him in June, 1921, and he retained office in Mr Baldwin's Cabinet in May, 1923. "Tales of Travel" and many interesting essays, translations and poems are among his published works.