A trading centre in medieval times, with a charter (1154) from Henry II,and another (in 1554) from his daughter, Mary Tudor, Derby was crippled by outbreaks of the plague in 1349,1592,1637, and again in 1645. As recent as 1693 there were only 694 houses in the borough.
A change took place in two stages of the Industrial Revolution. First, from 1715 to 1850, the silk and hosiery trade flourished and the manufacture of Derby porcelain and chinaware became a major industry. Secondly, with the coming of the railway, the town became an engineering centre. Despite its rapid expansion over the last 100 years, a thriving industrial town of more than 200,000 people, Derby, county town and cathedral city, has retained much from its past. It has Roman roots, the legions had a camp near the east bank of the Derwent. The town was named by the Danes, who made it one of their Five Boroughs, the key points of the Danelaw. By the time the Domesday Book was published in 1086, Derby was a town of 2,000 inhabitants with six churches and 14 mills; in fact the first successful silk-mill in England was established here by George Sorocold in about 1717.
The links with the railway are underlined by a scale working lay-out in the museum in the Strand, which also includes a large technical and industrial section: archaeological exhibits; local porcelain; and paintings by Derby's own Joseph Wright.
Certainly the most striking building hereabouts is the cathedral with its pinnacled 178 foot tower; built during the reign of Henry VIII and second only to Boston Stump as the tallest parish church tower in England. Apart from the tower, the Parish Church of All Saints (as it then was) was elevated to cathedral rank in 1927, rebuilt by James Gibbs in the early 18th century. It contains the large, carved alabaster tomb of of the much-married Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury. There are other interesting tombs and a bishops chair which came from Asia Minor. But the cathedral's greatest treasure is the superbly fashioned wrought-iron screen, the work of Robert Bakewell More of Bakewell's brilliant craftsmanship, can be seen in the entrance gates to the cathedral which once stood in front of a private house, but were given to the cathedral and dedicated in 1958.
Derby's oldest church is St Peter's - largely 14th century - but with some Norman work. There are also several other interesting churches, notably St Werburgh's, which has a wrought-iron font cover by Bakewell and parish registers dating back to 1583....they contain the entry of Dr Samuel Johnson's marriage to Tetty Porter; St Mary's Roman Catholic Church with its 117 foot tower topped by a figure of the Virgin Mary, designed by Pugin, and St Mary's Chapel, Bridge Gate, one of the few surviving chapels built on bridges.
Possibly today Derby is better known for its china factories, and in particular the fine Royal Crown Derby porcelain, which is sent all over the world. It is also the manufacturing and research centre of what was once the Midland Region of British Railways, with the largest locomotive and carriage works in Britain. It makes the famous Rolls-Royce aero-engines, and it has large foundries and other metal works, engineering and chemical works, as well as a nuclear engineering research plant.
As a town it is as ancient as any in England, but it lives in the present. Derby is certainly not unmindful of its past, however, and a new spirit for its preservation has arisen. Many of its fine old houses are gone, though some of them remain about the Market Place now turned into shops, and in the Cornmarket and the narrow Sadler Gate near by. It was in a house in the marketplace that Charles I stayed for three days on his march to Shrewsbury, borrowing £300 from the Corporation (there is no record of whether this was ever refunded, but if not the interest today would be colossal). Of Exeter House in Full Street, where Prince Charles Edward stayed, nothing remains but the oak panelling of the room where he held his last council of war, and that lines the walls of a room in the public library. Old houses of note include a fine Jacobean mansion in the Wardwick and the Dolphin Inn in Queen Street, gabled, half-timbered, and dated 1530. But the best street in Derby is Friar Gate, which has many houses showing the affluence of the 18th century.
An older building is to be found alongside St Mary's bridge over the Derwent, rebuilt in 1788. On the medieval bridge, of which a buttress survives, pious men of the 14th century built a tiny chapel. Less pious ages let it fall into disrepair and it became a carpenter's shop and storeroom. It might have been swept away altogether had not the new spirit come to its aid to make it a house of prayer once more. From inside its stone walls we can see the great timbers supporting the roof, or can examine the place on the floor where a way to the river could be found in times of danger.
From the banks of the Derwent, where the oldest settlement stood, we can read a great deal of the town's history, ancient and modern. The Derwent Bridge, where the stepped embankment follows the curve of the river, has four bronze medallions of four of the town's famous sons: John Lombe of the silk mill; Erasmus Darwin, grand-father of the greater Charles; the historian William Hutton; and Herbert Spencer, the philosopher. The embankment on one side of the river has now been completed with charming flower garden and a sunken lily pool, and at each end of the pool, standing on a pedestal just out of the water is a giant bronze tortoise.
One name has this town dear to the hearts of all, Florence Nightingale, who belongs to the county. On a stone pedestal near the huge buildings of the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, her lovely white marble statue looks down on the busy traffic passing by. A shawl is thrown loosely about her shoulders over the nurse's dress she wore in the Crimea, she has a frilled cap on her head, and in her hand a lighted torch such as she carried through the wards of Scutari. Another statue of particular note to be found in the Arboretum, is that of Sir Henry Royce. He, of course was the man who made the engine of the first aeroplane to cross the Atlantic direct, and the engine of that which made the first flight to Australia. He was a working boy, one of a family of nine, and he sold papers in the streets and delivered telegrams at a halfpenny a time. By his own character he won for himself the applause of the world, for all unaided by influence he forced himself upon the attention of the motor industry. He began with neither capital nor influence, with nothing but a faith in his own powers and in the future, and he it was who fashioned the Rolls-Royce car and, in partnership with Charles Rolls, who died too young, raised its reputation to the height at which it still stands throughout the world.
Derby is now a large and expanding city (city status was given in 1977). It provides for every taste and need.
Anybody visiting Derby will, as can be seen from the attractions list certainly need to allocate more than just one day to this historic city....more like a week!
Where to start is probably the first problem. The Derby Industrial Museum maybe...here one can see a museum of industry specializing in aero engines (understandably), railways, textiles and other aspects of Derby's industrial heritage. The Museum stands on the site of the world's first modern factories. It aims to interpret the industrial history of Derby within the wider context of Derbyshire. As recently as 1994, a new Power for Industry Gallery was opened here featuring a number of push-buttons and hands on activities...and in November 1995 opened the Rolls Royce Gallery and which features over 30 Derby built Rolls Royce aero engines, together with a number of models, archive film and lots of images of the people who built them and the machines in which they operated on land, sea and air....and if you go on Sundays, admission is free, as it is in fact at Pickfords House and the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. The former is an excellent museum covering Georgian life and historic costume whilst the latter concentrates on illustrating the arts, history, natural history, and militaria associated with the City, which includes the internationally acclaimed collections of Derby Porcelain from 1750 onwards along with the world famous Joseph Wright Painings.
