CURZON, Penn Assheton (1757-97), of Gopsall Park, Leics.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1784 - 1790
1790 - Feb. 1792
27 Feb. 1792 - 3 Sept. 1797

Family and Education

bap. 31 Jan. 1757, 1st s. of Assheton Curzon* by 1st w., and half-bro. of Hon. Robert Curzon*. educ. Westminster 1768; Brasenose, Oxf. 1774. m. 31 July 1787, Lady Sophia Charlotte Howe, da. and h. of Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe, who suc. him by spec. rem. as Baroness Howe, 5 Aug. 1799, 3s. 1da. suc. uncle Charles Jennens of Gopsall 1773.

Offices Held

Lt.-col. Leics. militia to 1790, yeomanry-d.

Biography

As Member for Leominster in the Parliament of 1784, Curzon supported Pitt, to whom he expressed his father’s wish for a peerage before the dissolution. His father had to wait and meanwhile he came in for Clitheroe on the recovered family interest. He was also a contender for a vacancy in the representation of Leicestershire, but Sir Thomas Cave was then chosen. He was nominated nem. con. on Cave’s death in 1792, the only other contender Thomas Babington*, also a Pittite, being ‘thoroughly unpopular among the Old Blues’. Curzon, listed hostile to the repeal of the Test Act in Scotland in 1791, was an inactive Member in the House and, out of it, ‘a perfect nuisance’ according to Mary Noel. He named a short-lived son born in 1792 Leicester as a compliment to his constituents. He died v.p. 3 Sept. 1797.

Spencer mss, Spencer to his mother, 11 June 1790; Mrs Howe to Lady Spencer, 18 Feb. 1792; M. Elwin, Noels and Milbankes, 368, 414; Gent. Mag. (1797), ii. 891.

Ref Volumes: 1790-1820

Author: M. H. Port

Notes