page_title: Oswald Mosley
section_title: Marriage to Lady Cynthia Curzon
hierarchical_section_title: Oswald Mosley / Life and career / Marriage to Lady Cynthia Curzon
caption_attribution_description: English: British politician Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (1896-1980) and Lady Cynthia, née Cynthia Blanche Curzon (1898-1933), on their wedding day.
context_page_description: Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet was a British politician who rose to fame in the 1920s as a Member of Parliament and later in the 1930s became leader of the British Union of Fascists. Mosley inherited the title 'Sir' by virtue of his baronetcy; he was the sixth baronet of a title that had been in his family for more than a century when he succeeded to the title upon his father's death on 21 September 1928.
  After military service during the First World War, Mosley was one of the youngest Members of Parliament, representing Harrow from 1918 to 1924, first as a Conservative, then an independent, before joining the Labour Party. At the 1924 General Election he stood in Birmingham Ladywood against future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, coming within 100 votes of beating him.
  Mosley returned to Parliament as Labour MP for Smethwick at a by-election in 1926 and served as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Labour Government of 1929–31. He was considered a potential Labour Prime Minister but resigned due to discord with the Government's unemployment policies.
context_section_description: On 11 May 1920, he married Lady Cynthia "Cimmie" Curzon (1898–1933), second daughter of the 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston, (1859–1925), Viceroy of India, 1899–1905, Foreign Secretary, 1919–1924, and Lord Curzon's first wife, the U.S. mercantile heiress, the former Mary Leiter.
  Lord Curzon had to be persuaded that Mosley was a suitable husband, as he suspected Mosley was largely motivated by social advancement in Conservative Party politics and Cynthia's inheritance. The 1920 wedding took place in the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace in London – arguably the social event of the year. The hundreds of guests included King George V and Queen Mary, as well as foreign royalty such as the Duke and Duchess of Brabant (later King Leopold III and Queen Astrid of Belgium).
  During this marriage, he began an extended affair with his wife's younger sister, Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the American-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston. He succeeded to the Baronetcy of Ancoats upon his father's death in 1928, which entitles the current holder to the prefix style Sir.
caption: Oswald Mosley and Lady Cynthia Curzon on their wedding day, 11 May 1920
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