This is the first of two volumes of studies of life in Belper in the nineteenth Century. It extends the biography of the town begun years ago in The Strutts and the Arkwrights. Volume one describes the town's first transport links by road and by rail.
The exquisite contemporary drawings by Samuel Russell punctuate an account of how the railway was brought through Belper, joining the town to the local and the national networks. This was the century that saw the Belper horse nail makers enjoy their greatest prosperity and then its loss as it was snatched away by the imported and machine made nails that extinguished their trade.
The book describes the nailers' union's fight to stem this loss of work which extended even to paying men to blow up non union workshops; but by 1900 the industry had died. For many, the Workhouse beckoned.
For the Strutts also, the second half of the century found them confronting grim realities. Their mills were no longer competitive, and by 1897 it was with some relief they sold out to the English Sewing Cotton Company.
The book is a worthy new member of the Trust's portfolio; like its predecessors it is carefully researched, generously illustrated and written in accessible english.
The book launch is 22nd September and the book will be available from 23rd September 2023.
Audiences have welcomed this latest production from our Charity for its authentic voice and diversity. Life one hundred and fifty years ago in this small Derbyshire town was smelly, tough and dirty for almost everyone and especially hard on the children. But there is humour, pathos and relief here. Relief that while human nature may not have changed, the plumbing has; and children are no longer sent out to work, or put to work at home, before they are ten.
Join us; hear it and see it all for yourself. You won’t regret it.
Admission: £7.50
Book in advance by phone 07784 875333
or by email [email protected].
Doors open 1:45 pm. Tea, coffee and soft drinks available.
This is the first of two books describing life in Belper in the nineteenth century. These were the years that saw the town establish itself within the county as an administrative centre and, with its early railway connection, a flourishing horse-nail industry, and the seemingly inexorable growth of the Strutts' empire, what could go wrong? But the railway didn't bring investment; handcrafted nails were overtaken by those made by machine and then by imported products; and the mills contracted and were sold. The growth of the town stalled.
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Here is the story of Matlock Bath from its origin in the late seventeenth century to the recent past. At first, a remote rural spa, a century later, though still no more than a small village, its awesome scenery and mineral springs had become so highly regarded by fashionable visitors that it was spoken of alongside Bath, Buxton and Tunbridge Wells.
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