Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale, Date of Birth, Date of Death
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British Viscount
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About Francis Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale
- Francis John Nathaniel Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (28 July 1924 – 2 August 2000), was a British peer. Curzon was the son of The Honourable Francis Nathaniel Curzon, who was the third son of Alfred Nathaniel Holden Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale.
- Francis Curzon succeeded his cousin, Richard Curzon, to the Viscountcy in 1977. Lord Scarsdale, who died aged 76, campaigned for a dozen years against the National Trust over its alterations to his ancestral home, Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, and for another 10 years trying to persuade the Trust to purchase Kedleston Hall. Scarsdale saw himself as "the 30th Lord of Kedleston in an unbroken male line of descent".
- His family had 900 years of recorded antecedents, but his position was the consequence of the stipulation in the Scarsdale title that it, and the estate, could only be inherited by a male heir. The 2nd Viscount, Richard Curzon, abandoned hope of a male heir after his first wife had produced four daughters and he had failed to father an heir with his second wife.
- As next in line, Francis Curzon, an old Etonian captain in the Scots Guards, and son of the 3rd son of the 4th Baron Scarsdale, was invited by a cousin he knew only little to see the estate for the first time in 1959.
- Kedleston Hall has been one of the glories of Britain since Robert Adam rebuilt it for the first Baron Curzon during the 1760s, including to house a collection of paintings by Tintoretto and Poussin, and of Chippendale furniture.
- The centre of an estate of 5,700 acres, it included a 500-acre park and an 18-hole golf course.
- From 1970, Scarsdale took charge of his future inheritance as estate manager.
- He knew, even before death duties of £2.5m, that he could not maintain the property on the basis of income from the estate's 17 farms.
- "The house is a gigantic headache," he moaned.
- He wanted to preserve it, and thus offered it to the nation in lieu of death duties.
- The Environment Secretary Michael Heseltine was sympathetic, as were arts ministers Norman St John-Stevas and Lord Gowrie.
- Margaret Thatcher consequently viewed the house. Whilst waiting for a decision, Scarsdale came into conflict with his son and heir Peter, to whom he had promised a tenth of the estate if it were sold.
- Peter wanted to wait for a £25m offer from overseas, which never occurred.
- It took until a decade, until 1987, before the National Trust was willing to acquire Kedleston Hall and its estate, for which it was financed by an unprecedented £14m, mainly from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.
- Lord Scarsdale made what seemed a generous deal with the trust.
- He and his family could live rent-free in a 23-room wing, with an adjoining garden and two rent-free flats for his servants or other family members.
- He could play billiards and hold parties in the main block, and shoot pheasants in the park when it was closed to the public.
- Meanwhile, the annual maintenance costs of £400,000 were to be met by members of the National Trust and 20,000 visitors.
- The irritation came from differing interpretations of the word "consult" in Scarsdale's agreement with the trust.
- He thought he could veto any changes; the trust insisted he would only be informed, as a courtesy.
- He wanted the current hall reserved as a "family home"; the trust wanted it restored to its 1760s glory.
- Scarsdale attacked the trust's "arrogance", "vandalism" and "sacrilege" for such things as removing a fountain or a favourite piece of furniture.
- Francis died on 2 August 2000 after a long illness.
- He left two sons and a daughter by his first wife, Solange, and two sons by his second wife, Helene, whom he married in 1968.
- His eldest son, Peter Ghislain Nathaniel Curzon, became the 4th viscount.
Read more at Wikipedia