Francis John Nathaniel Curzon, 3rd Viscount Scarsdale (28 July 1924 – 2 August 2000), was a British hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords.
Robert Adam had rebuilt it for the first Lord Curzon during the 1760s, and it housed a collection of paintings by Tintoretto and Poussin, and of Chippendale furniture.
However, the new owner knew, even before death duties of £2.5 million, that he could not maintain the great house on the basis of income from the estate's seventeen farms and 20,000 visitors a year.
Whilst waiting for a decision, Scarsdale came into conflict with his son and heir, Peter Curzon, to whom he had promised a tenth of the estate if it were sold.
On the British government not wanting to acquire the house, Scarsdale spent ten years trying to persuade the National Trust to buy it.
In 1987, the Trust agreed to acquire Kedleston Hall and its estate, thanks to being financed by an unprecedented £14M, mainly from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.