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

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.