William Strutt,
FRS (1756–1830) was a cotton spinner in
Belper
Belper is a town and civil parish in the local government district of Amber Valley in Derbyshire, England, located about north of Derby on the River Derwent. As well as Belper itself, the parish also includes the village of Milford and the ha ...
,
Derbyshire
Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nor ...
, England, and later a civil engineer and architect, using iron frames in buildings to make them
fire-resistant.
Early career
Strutt was the first son of
Jedediah Strutt
Jedediah Strutt (1726 – 7 May 1797) or Jedidiah Strutt – as he spelled it – was a hosier and cotton spinner from Belper, England.
Strutt and his brother-in-law William Woollat developed an attachment to the stocking frame that allowed the ...
and, after a good education, joined his father's business at the age of fourteen. He also inherited his father's mechanical abilities and is said to have thought of the self-acting
mule
The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare). The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two pos ...
some years before
Richard Roberts patented it in 1830, but the technology was not available to make it work.
Be that as it may, he looked after the technical side of the business, while his brothers,
Joseph
Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...
and George Benson dealt with commercial and management side respectively. It became known as ''W.G. and J. Strutt''.
In 1801 he bought
St Helen's House in King Street, Derby and used it as his family home until his death. He became a successful architect, designing many of the bridges in
Derby
Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...
and the original
Derbyshire General Infirmary in 1810. In 1779 he was made a freeman of Derby and Burgess of the Borough, allowing him to vote in Parliament. He was co-founder of the
Derby Philosophical Society
The Derby Philosophical Society was a club for gentlemen in Derby founded in 1783 by Erasmus Darwin. The club had many notable members and also offered the first institutional library in Derby that was available to some section of the public.
P ...
with
Thomas Gisborne
Thomas Gisborne (31 October 1758 – 24 March 1846) was an English Anglican priest and poet. He was a member of the Clapham Sect, who fought for the abolition of the slave trade in England.
Life
Gisborne was born at Bridge Gate, Derby, the ...
, Richard French,
Erasmus Darwin and other individuals, and was President for twenty-eight years.
Fire-resistant buildings
![William Strutt sculpture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/William_Strutt_sculpture.jpg)
One of Strutt's most important concerns was the development of fire-resistant structures and technology in textile mills and the application of these in other contexts. A major problem with the nineteenth-century timber-framed mills was fire, particularly if they worked with inflammable materials. When
Darley Abbey
Darley Abbey is a former historic mill village, now a suburb of the city of Derby, England. It is located approximately north of the city centre, on the west bank of the River Derwent, and forms part of the Darley ward along with Little Che ...
Mill burnt down in 1788, it was rebuilt with sheets of tin fastened to the beams as protection. Many engineers of the day were addressing the problem which was nationwide.
Strutt had used cast-iron for bridges in Derby, and applied it to building a
calico
Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...
mill in Derby, the Warehouse at Milford (pulled down in 1964 to make a car park), and then the new West Mill, built in 1795 at Belper. Tile and gypsum plaster floors were supported on brickwork arches supported on cast-iron columns. The timber beams were encased in thin sheet iron. To reduce weight, the upper floors were supported on hollow earthenware pots encased in plaster.
He rebuilt
Belper North Mill
Belper North Mill, also known as Strutt's North Mill in Belper, is one of the Derwent Valley Mills, given UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2001.
The mill is sited in Belper, a town in Derbyshire, England, roughly halfway between Derby and Matl ...
after it burnt down in 1803 using an iron-framed structure pioneered by
Charles Bage
Charles Woolley Bage (1751–1822) was an English architect, born in a Quaker family
"Bage Way", part of Shrewsbury's 20th century inner ring road which links Old Potts Way to Crowmere Road, was named for him.
References
1751 births
182 ...
at
Ditherington
Ditherington is a suburb of the town of Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, England. It is the fourth most deprived ward in non-metropolitan Shropshire.
There has been much regeneration work in the southern part of Ditherington, which is ...
in
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...
.
Strutt built a number of other mills in Belper and Milford, of which the most remarkable was perhaps the Round Mill. This is believed to have been influenced by the ideas of
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
for a "
Panopticon" building with a central overseer.
Family
He married Barbara, the daughter of Thomas Evans of
Darley Abbey
Darley Abbey is a former historic mill village, now a suburb of the city of Derby, England. It is located approximately north of the city centre, on the west bank of the River Derwent, and forms part of the Darley ward along with Little Che ...
, his first son
Edward
Edward is an English given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon name ''Ēadweard'', composed of the elements '' ēad'' "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and '' weard'' "guardian, protector”.
History
The name Edward was very popular in Anglo-Sa ...
later becoming
Lord Belper
Baron Belper, of Belper in the County of Derbyshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1856 for the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper, Edward Strutt, Chancellor of the Duchy o ...
. He also had three daughters, Elizabeth, Anne and Frances, and another two daughters who died in infancy.
Scientific and civic activities
In 1817 he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, his five proposers including
Marc Isambard Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Born in Franc ...
and
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fun ...
.
[ Strutt held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (D.L.) of Derbyshire.] Charles Hutton
Charles Hutton FRS FRSE LLD (14 August 1737 – 27 January 1823) was a British mathematician and surveyor. He was professor of mathematics at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich from 1773 to 1807. He is remembered for his calculation of th ...
's 1815 list of England's most notable private observatories included Strutt's observatory at Derby.
Derby Infirmary
In 1819 Strutt designed and built the Derby Infirmary, which he worked on with his friend Charles Sylvester
Charles Sylvester (1774–1828) was a chemist and inventor born in Sheffield, in the Kingdom of Great Britain. He worked on galvanization, public building heating and sanitation, and railroad friction amongst other things. A book, ''Industrial M ...
. Sylvester documented the new ways of heating hospitals that were included in the design and the healthier features such as self-cleaning and air refreshing toilets. Strutt incorporated many new features into the infirmary including his fire-proof construction and novel heating that allowed the patients to breathe fresh heated air whilst old air was channelled up to a glass and iron dome at the centre. Strutt's infirmary culminated in a giant statue of Aesculapius designed by William John Coffee. Sylvester described the advances that Strutt had made and this was successful in three ways. Sylvester was able to take the new ideas for heating and apply them in numerous other building projects.[ The Derby Infirmary was seen as a leader in European architecture and architects and visiting Royalty were brought to see its features.
Strutt died in 1830 and was buried in the Unitarian Chapel in Friargate, Derby. The President of the Royal Society eulogised Strutt in 1831 as "author of those great improvements in the construction of stoves, and in the economical generation and distribution of heat, which have of late years been so extensively and so usefully introduced in the warming and ventilation of hospitals and public buildings".][
]
Further reading
R. S. Fitton, Alfred P. Wadsworth (1958)
''The Strutts and the Arkwrights, 1758-1830: A Study of the Early Factory System''
Manchester University press. Reprints 1964, 1973.
References
* Cooper, B., (1983) ''Transformation of a Valley: The Derbyshire Derwent'' Heinemann, republished 1991 Cromford: Scarthin Books
* Naylor, P. ''(Ed)'' (2000) ''An Illustrated History of Belper and its Environs'' Belper: M.G.Morris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Strutt, William
1756 births
1830 deaths
Fellows of the Royal Society
English inventors
People from Belper
Deputy Lieutenants of Derbyshire