Quick Facts
Biography
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, third son of Alfred Nathaniel Holden Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale. He succeeded his cousin in the viscountcy in 1977.
Lord Scarsdale, who died aged 76, fought a dozen years of battles against the National Trust over its alterations to his ancestral home, Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, and another 10 years trying to persuade the trust to take the place off his hands.
Scarsdale saw himself as "the 30th Lord of Kedleston in an unbroken male line of descent". His family stretches back 900 years, but his position was the result of the typical stipulation in the Scarsdale title - that it, and the estate, could go only to a male heir.
The 2nd viscount gave up hope of a male heir after his first wife produced four daughters and he 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 third son of the 4th Baron Scarsdale, was invited by a cousin he hardly knew to see the estate for the first time in 1959.
Kedleston Hall has been one of the glories of Britain since the young Robert Adam rebuilt it for the first Baron Curzon in the 1760s, around his collection of Tintorettos, Poussins and Chippendale furniture. As 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 keep up the property on the basis of income from the estate's 17 farms. "The house is a gigantic headache," he moaned. Wanting to preserve it intact, he offered the pile 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. Even Mrs Thatcher went to have a look.
But while 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 sold. Peter wanted to wait for a £25m offer from overseas, which never materialised. It took until 1987, a full decade, before the National Trust was willing to take over Kedleston Hall and its estate, financed by an unprecedented £14m, mainly from the National Heritage 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 on the estate 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 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 1958. His eldest son, Peter Ghislain Nathaniel Curzon, became the 4th viscount.