About book Black Diamonds: The Rise And Fall Of An English Dynasty (2008)
Find the enhanced version of this and other reviews at: http://flashlightcommentary.blogspot....Catherine Bailey's Black Diamonds presents quite a challenge for me as a reviewer. In terms of content this piece is a treasure trove of information, but the formatting and haphazard construction make it an incredibly difficult piece to digest.For the record Bailey does not cover the rise of the Fitzwilliams. She takes great liberties assuming the reader is already familiar with the family and entirely omits the early chapters of their history without so much as a footnote of explanation. The title was created in 1716, but Bailey's chronicle doesn't begin until 1902 with the death of the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam leaving much of the family, not to mention the origins of their wealth and influence, shrouded in mystery. This omission, however, is only the beginning. The biographical preface is followed immediately by an emotionless tour book style introduction illustrating the present day appearance of the house and surrounding grounds. Chapters 1 through 3 see a return to the biographic tone with a focus on William "Billy" Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 7th Earl Fitzwilliam and the legal difficulties he struggled with coming into his inheritance and though chapter 4 retains the same voice, it makes an abrupt departure and jumps back to 1839 for the birth William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, Viscount Milton, to examine the life of Billy's father. Much to my annoyance, this erratic timetable is continued throughout the book. To make matters worse Bailey seems to have had more than a little trouble determining the exact scope of her work. The description led me to believe this was a family history, but within the text, the personal lives and accomplishments of the Fitzwilliams frequently fell to the way side as Bailey examined the coal mining industry, class conflict and the political upheaval that characterized England in the early and mid 1900s. Though I found the information intensely interesting, I often found myself wondering how the work of a pit pony and his adolescent driver or the breakdown of a coal miner's household budget impacted the inhabitants of Wentworth.I probably don't need to illustrate my point any further, but the most glaring departure of the book takes place between pages 332 and 379, a span in which Bailey devotes nearly fifty pages to Kathleen Kennedy, sister of future president John F. Kennedy. I understand her appearance here considering her tragic death alongside Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, but these pages aren't about their affair. The two don't even meet until page 380. No, this section details her life as a debutante, as daughter of the American Ambassador, her career with the Red Cross and the personal trials she suffered during her relationship with William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington. It is fun information, but entirely superfluous in the history of the Fitzwilliams.Do I think the book is a waste? Not at all. Bailey presents a wealth of wonderful material in these pages, much of which I'd never before encountered. In terms of content, I loved this piece, but that being said I would have liked to see more coherency in the final product.
I saw this book in the New Arrivals display in our University library. Being a "Downton Abbey" fan, I noticed the picture of Wentworth House (or, as I later discovered [see below], Wentworth Woodhouse, as it is now called). This mansion is unbelievably immense - the largest private dwelling in Europe, dwarfing Buckingham and Blenheim Palaces. It was the ancestral seat of the Earls Fitzwilliam, the richest family in England at the start of the 20th Century. Their riches came from land and mainly coal, owning extensive mining operations in Yorkshire, where their estate was.The story of the family's downfall is absorbing in its own right, and Bailey tells it brilliantly, a task made difficult because of the wholesale destruction of family records in a bonfire that burned for days.The family's decline and fall begins in the years leading up to WWI at the time of the 6th Earl's death. Bailey does a fine job of keeping the reader straight on these Fitzwilliam Earls, several of whom are called William and/or Milton . The family's fate plays out against a backdrop of a radically changing England. Lloyd-George became PM after the war, and instituted measures to greatly reduce the power and influence of the upper classes. After WWII, this devolution of the aristocracy continued unabated in England, which elected for the first time a Labour government that had strongly Socialist orientation, including nationalizing industries, including the country's coal mines. The government weasel, Manny Shinwell, who deals with the Fitzwilliam family comes across as the sort of Randian villain that persecuted Henry Reardon. He forces strip mining to be done almost to the doorstep of Wentworth House out of pure hatred of the upper class.His unreasoned and unreasonable actions, done immediately following WWII, have repercussions today.After reading the book, I got on the net to see more pictures of Wentworth House. I found that the current owners, the Newbold brothers (The 10th Earl died in 1979, and the title died with him; the house eventually ended up in private hands), have just sued the Coal Board for 100 million pounds for the damages to the property caused by government-mandated mining on the estate. If you read this book, do see the incredible pictures of this mansion online (especially the Whistlejacket Room). The Newbold brothers have plans of restoring the property to something resembling its former glory.Catherine Bailey is a first-rate writer and weaves an engrossing story that even has a JFK tie-in.
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BLACK DIAMONDS was an unexpected gem! This history of the fall of a noble family and the rise of socialism in Britain pulled me from the first chapters and left me strangely sad for a world long gone. Opening admitting my antipathy for both socialism and the miners unions of the 20th Century, one is still moved by the terrible conditions which revolutionized these misused individuals. One the other hand, the Fitzwilliams are almost tragic heroes, seeing their own fates so obviously in frount of them. Finally, the bit on the ties between Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy makes you simply distraught that this Kennedy original didn't live long enough to be part of the Sixties. One warning - if you have a romantic view of Rose Kennedy, skip the last third of this revealing biography - it portrays The Kennedy Matriarch as the self-righteous, intolerant harridan that she was....
—Tom
the war that brought down the aristocracy............WW1 was the instigator of the death of the totally gluttonous English upper classes.For so long they had used and abused the common man whose labour and sweat had provided the capital for their lifestyles.The end of World War 1 changed the way England was to become with the diminishing of the aristocracies power over both resources and people .Abusive of the people many of the older aristos were ignorant and immune to the pain and suffering of others so long as they had what they wanted.The Fitzwilliams were not as bad as many of their ilk but they still refused to give those who worked and died for their way of life a living wage where they could keep their families in health and happiness.The morality of the upper class was repugnant to many of the working class who saw the affairs and carelessly produce offspring as a reason to look down on the aristocracy as failed human beings.Some mourn the passing of the great families ,many rejoice at what they foolishly percieve as the leveling of the playing field for all.Although the aristocracy must carry a heavy burden of responsiblity for the way they are remembered ,it is to this class that we owe a debt for many of the beautiful works of art and the homes that dot the landscape of Britain,yes they were immoral and cared little for children born out of wedlock,yes they treated anyone not of their class as inferior and therefor not worth noting BUT they were an institution without which Britain would never have become what she did.Had the world wars not decimated the upper classes many to the end of their lineage Britain may have become a different nation and the passing of the upper class may have been more a change in attitude rather than their diminution.Who knows but of the Fitzwilliams and their family the end came without outside help it came from within from hate and greed that eventually spelt their doom.
—Maryanne
When I think of black diamonds, I think of the black gem stone, not coal. But coal and coal mining is the subject of this account of the aristocratic Fitzwilliam family and their Yorkshire coal mines. This fast-paced social history shows how coal gave this family its fortunes yet also caused its rapid downfall.The family owned not only a vast estate but most important, the mineral rights to the coal below ground. The villages the coal miners lived in, the schools, hospitals, stores, everything that touched the miners' lives was dependent on the Fitzwilliam family. By all accounts they were decent people to work for and the mines were productive and successful. When the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam died in 1902 he left an estate among the richest in England.The family lived in the 300-plus room Wentworth House, once the largest privately owned house in England. But the politics that emerged after the great wars changed the family's fortunes in a spectacularly short time. The Labour government that came to power after the first World War levied massive taxes on the great landed estates; the government nationalized the country's mines following World War II. Today the Fitzwilliam estate is a wasteland and the once great Wentworth House a ruin.Bailey writes books about the British aristocracy and their failings and foibles. In this fascinating book she lays the family's affairs, politics, deaths, alcoholism, illegitimate children, the cutting off of heirs and its ties to the Kennedy family bare for all to see. The story of their spectacular downfall reads like a novel. I found it fascinating.- Liz
—Glencoe Public Library
