This surname is derived from a geographical locality. 'Geraldine de Curzon came into England with the Conqueror. His descendants were in Derbyshire, temp. Henry I, and Curzon, Lord Scarsdale, is "of Scarsdale" in that county' (Lower).

Richard de Curzoun, Derbyshire, 20 Edward I: Placita de Quo Warranto, temp. Edward I-III.

Henry de Curzoun, Derbyshire, ibid.

Thomas de Curzon, Northamptonshire, ibid.

Agnes Curson, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Sibilla Curson, 1379: ibid.

V. Curzon.

From the fief of Courson, near Caen. Hubert de Courson ratifies a grant to the church of Ste. Marie-de-Courson in Normandy.—Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie. A De Courson, belonging to the Bailifry of Orbec, took his place in the great Assembly of the Nobles in 1789.—Nobiliaire de Normandie.

Robert de Curcon or De Curcun—the only one of the family entered in Domesday—held as an under-tenant in Norfolk and Suffolk: and the name continued for many generations in the former county. Richard and William de Curcun occur in the Rotuli Curiæ Regis 1194-99. Sir Roger de Curzon (whose armorial bearing, Checkere d’or et de sable ove une fesse d' argent, is given on the roll of the battle of Boroughbridge), and John de Courzon, were both summoned in 1324 to the great Council held at Westminster: and the latter was a Commissioner of Array in the following year. Thomas Coursoun was Sheriff of Norfolk 11 and 19 Ric. II.

None of the existing families, however, claim to derive from them. Their common ancestor, Giraline de Curzon, was Lord of Lockinge in Berkshire, a manor that long remained in the possession of the family, as Stephen de Curzon, Lord of West Lockinge, Berks, in 1316, is mentioned in Palgrave’s Parliamentary Writs. Giraline was a benefactor of Abingdon Abbey, and, besides his Berkshire estate, had another in Oxfordshire, both of which he must have held very soon after the date of Domesday, as his three sons lived in the reign of Henry I. Stephen, the eldest, received from Earl Ferrers the Staffordshire manor of Fauld, which passed to his heir-general, Agnes de Burton; and Giraline, the last born, died s. p. Thus the second son, Richard, enfeoffed by the same Earl of four knight’s fees in Croxhall, Kedleston, Twyford, and Edinhale in Derbyshire, became the head of the house, and first settled in the county that has been the home of the Curzons from that day to this. No family has ever better carried out the principle of one of their own mottoes, “Let Curzon hold what Curzon held”; for the estate acquired close upon eight hundred years ago remains unalienated and entire. They have faithfully clung to the old home and the old acres, and never sought to depart from the traditions of their forefathers, content to live as they lived, and lay their bones with theirs. “The land, a stranger to purchase, seems to rejoice, as never changing its master; and the Lord, as enjoying a permanent title, without one deed to support it.”—Hutton's Derby.

Richard’s grandson and namesake married Petronel, heiress of Richard de Camville, and was the common ancestor of the two branches that were respectively seated at Croxhall and Kedleston. The Croxhall branch, derived from the eldest of his sons, was carried on for fourteen generations, ending with Henry Curzon in 1639. His heiress was the daughter of his elder brother, Sir George, Mary, married to Ed. Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset. This was the Lord Dorset of whom Clarendon says: “He entered into a fatal quarrel upon a subject very unwarrantable, with a young nobleman of Scotland, the Lord Bruce: upon which they both transported themselves to Flanders, and attended by only two chirurgeons placed at a distance, and under an obligation not to stir but at the fall of one of them, they fought under the walls of Antwerp, when the Lord Bruce fell dead upon the place, and Sir Edward Sackville (for so he was then called) being likewise hurt, retired into the next monastery which was near at hand.” “A Lady,” writes an effusive contemporary, “so fully adorned with such worthie parts of grace and nature, so noble, so wise, and so religious, that there is no goodness to be required in a Woman, which is not found in her: so that, not without good cause and advice by the united Council of the State, the greatest Treasure in this Kingdom was not long since delivered to her charge.” This was Charles, Prince of Wales, who was placed under her care from his birth, in 1630.

About seventy years before, in the days of “fierce Queen Mary,” another and less fortunate daughter of the house, Joyce Curzon, whose father was then Lord of Croxhall, had been burnt at the stake as a heretic at Coventry.

The younger, or Kedleston line, remains unbroken and unchanged. The name has been regularly transmitted by a succession of country gentlemen, all dwelling under the same patriarchal roof-tree, and carried out over the same threshold to their last resting-place. “The Curzons occasionally held the offices of sheriffs and representatives ever since those offices were instituted. They were Knights when the Crown wanted money, and Esquires when it did not, till 1641, when Sir John Curzon, perhaps for ₤1000, brought the title of Baronet into the family; and George III., in 1761, advanced the present possessor to the dignity of Lord Scarsdale.

“The name of Curzon was famous for riches, and the place of their abode for hospitality.

“The house, the work of the present owner, and of thirty years, is one of the most superb of the kingdom. It is made whatever money or genius could make it All the beauties that art can assemble are united in the building, the furniture, and the park! a terrestrial paradise, too delightful for a man to wish to quit, that he might follow his forefathers. * * * * “Perhaps ₤200,000 lie under this spacious roof, consequently Lord Scarsdale sits at the rent of ₤10,000 a year! a rent that would perform wonders. To receive it, would make a man forget himself; to pay it, would make even a hero tremble.”—Hutton's History of Derby. The following is a curious instance of homely thrift. “Incidents, seemingly beneath notice, not only characterize persons, but exhibit the different style of life between the last century and the present” (this was written in 1791). “While the Meynell family were spending their sober evening by the glow of their own fire, a coach and six was heard rolling up to the door: ‘Bring candles,’ says the lady of the mansion, with some emotion, while she stept forward to receive the guests: but instantly returning, ‘Light up a rush,’ said she: * it is only my cousin Curzon.’”— Hutton's Derby. Ten thousand a year would scarcely be spoken of in such terms nowadays, when the purchasing power of money is so lamentably lessened. Yet, as regards public estimation, it probably stands as high, or higher, than it ever did.

Many younger branches have sprung from this ancient stock. Sir Robert Curzon, who represented one of them, and died s. p., was created a Baron of the Empire in 1500 by the Emperor Maximilian, and, according to Collins, an English Baron by Henry VIII.: but no such title is noticed either by Dugdale or Banks. Another, derived from Walter de Curzon (uncle of “John with the White Head,” who was Sheriff of Notts and Derby 15 Hen. VI.), was seated at Water Perry in Oxfordshire, and received a baronetcy from Charles II. the year after his restoration. The third Baronet died childless in 1750; and his estate eventually passed to Francis Roper, Lord Teynham, who added the name and arms of Curzon to his own. A third, the Curzons of Letheringset in Norfolk, is likewise extinct. But two others, yet remaining, are each represented by a peer of the realm. The brother of the first Lord Scarsdale, Assheton (so named from his mother, the co-heiress of Sir Ralph Assheton of Middleton in Lanca­shire), was created Viscount Curzon in 1794. His son and heir married Sophia, in her own right Baroness Howe, the eldest daughter of Richard, Earl Howe, the illustrious Admiral, whose great victory off Rochefort we commemorate on “the glorious first of June.” The Earldom was revived for his descendant in 1821. Lastly, Robert, third son of the first Viscount, married in 1808, Harriet Bisshop, Baroness Zouche, whose title is now borne by their grandson.

Curson in Roll of Battell Abbey. De Curcan in the Domesday Book.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Curcan.

The Cursons of Dereham bear one of the oldest of Norfolk names. The ancient family of this name held large estates in the county from the 13th to the 15th century (Bl.).