melodysparks | Entries tagged with derbyshire

Jedediah Strutt was a hosier and cotton spinner from Belper, England. He was born in South Normanton near Alfreton in Derbyshire into a farming family in 1726. In 1755 he married Elizabeth Woolatt. Strutt and his brother-in-law William Woollat developed an attachment to the stocking frame that allowed the production of ribbed stockings. Their machine became known as the Derby Rib machine, and the stockings it produced quickly became popular.

Richard Arkwright relocated to the textile centre of Nottingham in 1768 moving from Chorley in Lancashire, and set up his spinning frame there using horse-power to run the mill (His original mill still exists in Nottingham but is now a pub called The Mill at the bottom of Woolpack Lace in the Lace Market), but this was an unsatisfactory power source.

Jedediah Strutt was a partner of Richard Arkwright in the building of a cotton mill at Cromford using the River Derwent to power the mill and his spinning frame now called Arkwright's water frame. The mill revolutionised textile manufacturing and marked the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. This mill was ideally located along the River and drew its workforce from the hamlets and villages nearby.

Strutt bought land in the tiny hamlet of Belper which was home to framework knitters in around 1777 and built a water-powered cotton mill of his own, the second in the world. In 1784 he built the North Mill, and across the road joined by a bridge, the West Mill (West Mill is now owned by COurtaulds and still produces textiles). In 1803 the North Mill was burnt down to be replaced by an innovative new structure designed to be fireproof. Other extensions followed, culminating in the East Mill in 1913, a present day Belper landmark. To this day the mill derives power from the river, using turbine-driven electrical generators.

Strutt slowly expanded until he had built 8 mills in total. For each Mill he built estates of houses for his workers. By mid 1800 Belper had increased in population from a handful of families to over 10,000 people.

Belper North Mill, also known as Strutt's North Mill, Belper, is one of the Derwent Valley Mills designated UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2001. It is sited in Belper, a town in Derbyshire, England roughly half way between Derby and Matlock. Cotton spinning and textile production has virtually ended and all that nowadays remains of Strutt's Mills is the large East Mill and the smaller North Mill, preserved as part of the Derwent Valley Mills heritage sites. In 2001 the valley between Derby's silk mill, through Belper, to Arkwright's Cromford Mills was given World Heritage status.