George Curzon collection

The collection comprises of correspondence by Curzon regarding the Antarctic expeditions of Robert Falcon Scot and Ernest Henry Shackleton.

George Nathaniel Curzon was born at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, in 1859. He was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1885, he was appointed assistant private secretary to the Marquis of Salisbury and in the same year contested the parliamentary seat for South Derbyshire. In 1886, he was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the Southport division of Lancashire, serving between 1891 and 1892 as under-secretary of state for India, and from 1895 to 1898, as under-secretary of state for Foreign Affairs.

In 1898, he was created Baron Curzon of Kedleston in the Irish peerage and appointed viceroy and governor-general of India, an office he held until 1905. In 1907, he was elected chancellor of Oxford University and the following year, entered the House of Lords as an Irish representative peer, serving as secretary of state for Foreign Affairs between 1919 and 1924, and as leader of the House of Lords from 1916 to 1924. Between 1911 and 1914, he served as president of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1921, Curzon was created first Marquis of Kedleston and died in London in 1925.

The correspondence is arranged alphabetically by recipient.

By appointment.

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The term holograph is used when the item is wholly in the handwriting of the author. The term autograph is used when the author has signed the item.

Descriptions compiled by N. Boneham, Assistant Archivist with assistance from R. Stancombe and reference to Robert Keith Headland Antarctic Chronology, unpublished corrected revision of Chronological list of Antarctic expeditions and related historical events, (1 December 2001) Cambridge University Press (1989) ISBN 0521309034 and Dictionary of National Biography, 1922-1930, Oxford University Press, London (1937) and Who was who, 1916-1928, Adam & Charles Black, London (1947)

Clive Holland Manuscripts in the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England - a catalogue, Garland Publishing New York and London (1982) ISBN 0824093941.

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