Family ‘block’ better public access to Curzon archives
VICEROY’S DECISION TO DIVIDE BENGAL ‘DID UNTOLD DAMAGE’ IN PRE-PARTITION INDIA
THE National Trust would like the public to have greater access to the archives of Lord Curzon, who was probably the most important of the viceroys in India, but his descendants appear resistant to the idea.
Indians take a nuanced view of Curzon, who represented British rule in India from 1899 to 1905.
On one hand he rescued the Taj Mahal from the overgrown jungle it had become and restored the marble mausoleum to its pristine glory. Encouraged by his wife, Mary, he also gave orders for a game sanctuary to be established in Kaziranga in Assam, thereby saving the Indian rhinoceros from extinction.
However, he did untold damage by partitioning Bengal in 1905 in an effort to set Muslims – who were more numerous in the eastern part of the province – against Hindus, who were dominant in the west. Many of the disadvantages suffered by Bangladeshis in the UK can be traced back to the division of Bengal.
When India became independent in 1947, East Bengal became East Pakistan. And it became Bangladesh after breaking away from West Pakistan in 1971.
Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire has been the seat of the Curzon family since the 13th century. It was handed over to the trust in 1987 on the condition that his descendants could retain the use of a 23-room wing.
As part of a review of its properties and their former owners, the trust last year published biographical material on Curzon, in which it alleged he was motivated by his “racist ideology”.
It wants the Curzon papers, known as the “Kedleston Archive”, moved to the Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock, a market town in the county. But his descendants are claiming ownership of the documents, valued at £1 million.
The trust said: “We receive a growing number of requests to access the archive and it is difficult to support these, alongside our core responsibility which is to care for the house and its collections.
“Many National Trust archives are deposited on loan with county records offices and other archival institutions, where there are dedicated teams who can make them readily available to the public.
“A 1986 deed transferred the majority of the archive from the Kedleston trustees to the National Trust.
“No commitments regarding the archiving of the historic documents have been made. There have been exploratory conversations to understand what may be possible in the future to provide improved public access, but no decisions have been made. Any decision would be subject to further consultation with the trustees of Kedleston Estate Trust and in line with museum accreditation.”
According to a historical note, “George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, KG, GCSI, GCIE, PC, FRS, FBA (11 January 1859-20 March 1925), styled The Lord Curzon of Kedleston between 1898 and 1911 and The Earl Curzon of Kedleston between 1911 and 1921, was a British Conservative statesman who served as viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, during which he created the territory of Eastern Bengal and Assam.”
An MP at the age of 27, he was appointed under-secretary for India just five years later. Before his 40th birthday, he had secured the British empire’s most prized job – viceroy of India. He went on to be chancellor of Oxford University in 1907; Lord Privy Seal in 1915; and foreign secretary in 1919. But he did not make it as prime minister. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he was resentful of the doggerel that followed him all his life: “My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,/ I am a most superior person./ My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,/ I dine at Blenheim once a week.”
Following the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901, he suggested the building of what became the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and a muchloved city landmark. Government House in the city, now called Raj Bhavan, the residence of the governor of West Bengal, was styled on Kedleston Hall.
Professor Thomas R Metcalf, consultant editor, department of history, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has this to say about Curzon: “George Nathaniel Curzon is without question the most well-known viceroy of India.
“It is also not unreasonable to claim him as the most influential or, at any rate, as one among a very few British administrators in India who left an enduring mark upon that land.”
Curzon poisoned Hindu-Muslim relations by partitioning Bengal. “Motivated in part by a desire to play Hindu against Muslim, this act was reversed, and Bengal reconstituted afresh, in 1912. Curzon’s governing strategy took no account of such bodies as the Indian National Congress, whose claims he disdained as unworthy and self-interested. Rather, he sought to place India’s princes at the heart of an imperial order that took visible shape in the grand durbar of 1902. Celebrating King Edward VII’s assumption of the title of Emperor of India, this durbar brought together all of Britain’s ‘Asiatic feudatories’, but kept them confined in subordination to the ‘paramount’ power that was Britain.”
In 2005, Andrew Robinson, a history master at Eton, curated an exhibition, Eton and India. That Eton has produced 20 British prime ministers is the stuff of quiz shows.
What is less well known is that the manner in which the British ruled India can be attributed to some extent to the values that 11 viceroys and five governors-general – the roll call includes Cornwallis, Canning, Roberts, Lansdowne, Irwin and Linlithgow – derived from their guru-shishya [teacher-student] relationship at Eton.
Curzon, for example, was deeply influenced at Eton by Oscar Browning, one of his tutors. In India, Curzon surrounded himself with trusted “OEs” (Old Etonians), as place cards for old boys’ dinners in Calcutta in 1900 and in Simla in 1901 reveal. For the latter on “June 4”, a traditional Eton date, he collected no fewer than 14 Etonians, even putting down their Houses.
And on the greatest Etonian of them all, the exhibition has this to say: “Curzon was a reformer, but he had no intention of paving the way for self-rule in India.”
There is also Curzon’s justification for being in India: “As long as we rule India, we are the greatest power in the world. If we lose it we shall drop straightaway to a third-rate power.”
But Indians are forgiving. When Kaziranga National Park celebrated its centenary in 2005, invitations were sent to Lord Ravensdale and David Metcalfe, the sons of Curzon’s middle and youngest daughters, Cynthia and Alexandra.
Lord Ravensdale, who did take up the invitation, said at the time: “Curzon always hoped the British would have a role overseeing the Raj.
“He did believe in the role of the British Raj. At the same time, he was noted for trying to encourage Indian civil servants so that they would be responsible for their own affairs.”
He concluded: “I really do think he was one of those English people who did take his job, his post, very responsibly. He did have the welfare of the Indian people at heart, but it was still in a paternalistic way which is now so frowned upon but, at the time, [was] the best one could do.”