21 Facts About Curzon Street

1. Curzon Street had decided that the one lesson he must learn from his bitter experience in India was: never to resign.

2. Curzon Street accepted on the condition that he was to be made a privy councillor, and on June 29, 1895, he was duly sworn in by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.

3. On November 10, 1891, Curzon Street took his first step up the political ladder by accepting Salisbury's invitation to become under secretary of state for India in the Tory government.

4. Curzon Street was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1880 and made a fellow of All Souls College in 1883.

5. In January 1920 Curzon Street insisted that British troops remain in Batum, against the wishes of Wilson and the Prime Minister.

6. Curzon Street was largely responsible for the Peace Day ceremonies on 19 July 1919.

7. In 1923, Curzon Street was passed over for the office of Prime Minister partly on the advice of Arthur Balfour, who joked that Curzon "has lost the hope of glory but he still possesses the means of Grace".

8. Curzon Street served in Lloyd George's small War Cabinet as Leader of the House of Lords from December 1916, and he served on the War Policy Committee.

9. Early in 1916 Curzon Street visited Douglas Haig at his headquarters in France.

10. Curzon Street was a member of the Dardanelles Committee and told that body that the recent Salonika expedition was "quixotic chivalry".

11. Curzon Street joined the Cabinet, as Lord Privy Seal, when Asquith formed his coalition in May 1915.

12. Curzon Street successfully became elected as Chancellor of Oxford after he won by 1001 votes to 440 against Lord Rosebery.

13. Curzon Street had convinced his government to establish Britain as the unofficial protector of Kuwait with the Anglo-Kuwaiti Agreement of 1899.

14. Curzon Street argued for an exclusive British presence in the Gulf, a policy originally proposed by John Malcolm.

15. Curzon Street was appalled by his government's apathy towards Persia as a valuable defensive buffer to India from Russian encroachment.

16. Curzon Street was aided by General Albert Houtum-Schindler and the Royal Geographical Society, both of which helped him gain access to material to which as a foreigner he would not have been entitled to have access.

17. Curzon Street believed that the resulting greater economic interdependence between Russia and Central Asia would be damaging to British interests.

18. Curzon Street dedicated an entire chapter in his book Russia in Central Asia to discussing the perceived threat to British control of India.

19. Curzon Street believed Russia to be the most likely threat to India, Britain's most valuable colony, from the 19th century through the early 20th century.

20. Curzon Street became Assistant Private Secretary to Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered Parliament as Member for Southport in south-west Lancashire.

21. Curzon Street is mentioned in Van Morrison s song "He ain t give you none".