George Hay, 8th Earl of Kinnoull, bought the Brodsworth estate from Sir John Wentworth in 1713 and rebuilt the house in the
Georgian style, but lost his money in the
South Sea Bubble crash of 1720 and was obliged to take the position of Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. His second son
Robert, later
Archbishop of York, took up residence on the estate instead and made a number of improvements to the house and grounds. On his death in 1777, the house was left empty, and, after his eldest son became the
10th Earl of Kinnoull in 1787, he sold the estate in 1790 to
Peter Thellusson (1737–1797) of the Swiss banking family. Peter Thellusson had come from
Geneva and settled in England, becoming a director of the
Bank of England. This role saw him provide loans to
slave ship and
plantation owners. As these slave owners defaulted on debts, Thellusson amassed interests in Caribbean plantations and became a tobacco and sugar importer. He wrote an unusual will, unsuccessfully challenged by his family in the
Thellusson Will Case, whereby his fortune was put in trust to be untouched for three generations. Peter Thellusson's grandson Arthur Thellusson, married the daughter of another
Antigua slave owner, Sir
Christopher Bethell-Codrington. The Thellussons were slave owners in
Grenada and
Montserrat as late as 1820. One of the two eventual beneficiaries was the
5th Baron Rendlesham. The other was Peter's great-grandson Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson who, in 1859, inherited half the bequest plus the Brodsworth estate with its Georgian house. He demolished the existing house and commissioned the present one, which was built in two years between 1861 and 1863. A keen yachtsman, he also commissioned four yachts, the last two being, successively, the largest in the world. He was appointed
High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1866–1867. He and his wife Georgiana left four sons, all of whom died childless, and the house therefore passed to each son in turn. The third son, Charles Thellusson, leased the mineral rights to the
Brodsworth Colliery Company and also rented them the land for the construction of
Woodlands model village to accommodate the
miners. In addition he paid for the construction of All Saints' Church (1913) for the village. He was also responsible for the introduction of electric light to the hall. He was
High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1942–1943. The last resident of the house was Sylvia Grant-Dalton (wife of Captain Grant-Dalton), who fought a losing battle for 57 years against leaking roofs on the mansion and land
subsidence from nearby coal mining. After her death in 1988, Her daughter, Pamela Williams, gave the Hall and gardens to
English Heritage in 1990. The contents of the house were purchased by the
National Heritage Memorial Fund and transferred to the ownership of English Heritage. It was decided to conserve the interiors "as found" rather than replacing or restoring them. They demonstrate how a once opulent Victorian house grew "comfortably" old. ==The House==