A Noble Thing

During the twentieth century there was an unprecedented and largely unforeseen transfer of property in Britain from private ownership into the hands of a single charitable institution, the National Trust. In 1945 the Trust owned 112,000 acres and had a membership of 7,850. Fifty years later, when celebrating its centenary, it had a membership of 2 million and the area of land it owned had increased more than fivefold Only relatively recently has the significance of this transfer begun to attract the serious interest of political and social historians. The National Trust and its donors have tended to be diffident about their generosity. The reasons for such generosity prove to be as varied as they are surprising and illuminating. Merlin Waterson's new book, concentrating on the period since 1940, and accompanied throughout by rare and unusual illustrations, sheds new light on the motives of some of the Trust's most important donors.