The house that coal built

I opened this book expecting to  find the sort of volume a considerate host would place in your country- house bedroom. It is a bit more than that. Taking the decline of the Earls of Fitzwilliam and their enormous house Wentworth Woodhouse, outside Rother- ham, as her theme, Caroline Bailey evokes the social revolution that occurred in 20th- century Britain. The almost inconceivable riches of the Fitzwilliam family — coming- of-age parties were celebrated with entertainment for tens of thousands of people — are contrasted to the squalor in which local miners lived. The Fitzwilliams were not bad employers. It was unfortunate that a visit by George V and Queen Mary in 1919, made to bolster the position of the monarchy at a time of fermenting unrest, should have coincided with two explosions in Denaby Main. Billy, the 7th Earl Fitzwilliam, had studied mining; he had already warned the company concerned that an accident was likely to happen.