ABSTRACT
In 1972 a fi re at Wentworth, home to one of Britain’s most eminent aristocratic families, the Fitzwilliams, “burnt for three weeks” and consumed some “sixteen tons of the Fitzwilliams’ correspondence” ( Bailey 2008: 11 ). Counted amongst the losses were the private papers of Lady Maud, who had married Billy, the seventh Earl Fitzwilliam in 1902, and who is remembered as both a fashionable hostess of Edwardian and inter-war society and a self-styled Lady Bountiful. A few of her letters, however, have survived and are now deposited in the Sheffi eld Archives. Amongst these is a letter written in 1945 to her friend Annie Bindon Carter, in which the Countess Fitzwilliam records her regret that Painted Fabrics Ltd., a textile business founded by Carter some years earlier, seemed to be “coming practically, to an end.” In the letter she recalled not only that “The curtains still hang at Wentworth, & here, my bedspread to match, all of which you made [for] me,” and “What happy days they were the exhibitions at Wentworth & 4 Grosvenor Square & then at Claridge’s & my court train, to which [the] Princess Royal drew the King’s attention as I went past all very merry & delightful,” but also the “many ‘Lives’ you have made happy, who, without you, would have been so sad & [had] no interest left, with nothing to do or look forward to.” Carter, as the Countess Fitzwilliam intimated, had desired to transform the lives of her workers by “accomplishing & producing something truly worthwhile” (PF/5/2 February 2, 1945) .
