The area around Derby has been inhabited for millennia – from prehistory, through Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking settlements. The Mercian queen Ethelflaeda won a significant victory against the Vikings at Derby and the town became an important monastic centre in the Middle Ages and was in the front line of later conflicts during the Civil War and the Jacobite Rebellion. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marked the development of industrial Derby, including the new porcelain industry, and at the same time it attracted a group of Enlightenment thinkers, artists, scientists and reforming industrialists, including Erasmus Darwin and Joseph Wright, who were to leave their mark on the country. Famous manufacturing names such as Rolls-Royce made Derby their home and today’s city is now redeveloping itself in a post-industrial world.

Illustrated throughout, this accessible historical portrait of the transformation that Derby has undergone through the ages will be of great interest to residents, visitors, and all those with links to the city.

Michael Smith is Derby born and bred. After studying at Derby Technical College, he found employment in a variety of local companies and organisations. He later trained to be a teacher at Bishop Lonsdale College (now part of Derby University). Michael is a successful author with over a dozen books and numerous magazine articles to his credit. The majority of these have focussed on the history and heritage of Derby and its surrounding areas. He is a member of a number of local organisations including Derbyshire Archaeological Society, Derby Civic Society and the Friends of Derby Museums.