This is the definitive biography of Sir Richard Arkwright (1732-1792) and the first detailed account of the life of his only son Richard Arkwright junior (1755-1843), and the dynasty of land owning gentry he founded and sustained from his immense wealth.
A work of encyclopaedic detail, all the major issues of Sir Richard's career are considered; his family's origins in Lancashire; his education; the inventions; the patents won and lost; the Arkwright system; his emergence as a public figure and the business empire he created.
In Fitton's careful assessment Richard junior emerges, from beneath the shadow of his father, as his own man. Diffident and modest yet a money making machine who died 'the richest commoner in Europe'.
JOHN TAMS returns to St Peter’s following a sellout Christmas show with a fundraiser for the publication of Belper Voices Volume Two.
Saturday 13th July 2024 at St Peter's Belper. Doors open 7pm. Performance 7:45pm.
Tickets £15 from livetickets.org, belperfringe.org, eventbrite.co.uk.
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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