England has lost a historic house and the Lyttclton family
a beloved home by the burning of Hagley Hall last week. Of the precious contents of the library collected by several heads of the family and the valuable pictures only a remnant can have escaped damage by fire or water. Since the thirteenth century Worcestershire has with good reason been proud of Hagley and its owners, a family which has served the country well in manifold directions. It will not be forgotten that when a rumour arose that the late Lord Cobham intended, like many other landlords after the War, to sell his farms, a body of tenants spontaneously petitioned him to raise the rents rather than sell. The house that has been burnt was a large Georgian one built by the first peer in the eighteenth century. Few English country homes have been so continuously centres where intelligent men, statesmen and scholars have met. Hagley was associated with Pitt, the Grenvilles, Hardwicke, Pulteney and other Georgian statesmen, and later, of course, with Mr. Gladstone.
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