'It is a rule that no Trevelyan ever sucks up either to the press, or the chiefs, or the right people. The world has given us money enough to enable us to do what we think is right. We thank it for that and ask no more of it, but to be allowed to serve it', G.M. Trevelyan. The Trevelyans are unique in British social and political history: a family which for several generations dedicated themselves to the service and chronicling of their country, from the radical, reforming civil servant Charles Edward Trevelyan to the historian G.M. Trevelyan. Often eccentric, priggish, high minded and utterly self-regarding, they have nonetheless left their mark on our past. This engaging history dispassionately explores the lives and achievements of this unique family and the part they played in shaping the history of Great Britain.