Trentham was the Staffordshire home of the Leveson-Gower family the Dukes of Sutherland In the mid-nineteenth century they were said to be the richest non-royal family in Britain They owned many other country houses & estates bound to each other by a large & loyal staff The resulting archive is huge Combining these records with family history sources it is possible to reimagine some of the triumphs & tragedies of their servants & managers who they were what they did & what happened to them after their time at Trentham ended With its strict social structure & its sometimes bizarre regulations the world of Trentham in the 1830s can seem alien to us now but families are always families responsibilities can always be burdensome & sorrow is always around the corner The stories of Trentham's servants are not just family histories; they reveal experiences & unravel relationships to which we can all relate & demonstrate how people coped in the face of the immense change to country-house life in the early years of the transition into a modern nation