This is the story of a family whose lives were transformed by the opportunities of the cotton trade, rocked by premature death and changed fundamentally by the Wall Street Crash.

From the early 19th century the family lived on the Derbyshire/Cheshire border around Mellor, Ludworth, Marple and Compstall. Historically these were always poor hill-farming areas. The local people scratched a living from the land and supplemented their incomes by spinning and weaving in their homes. From 1791 onwards, when Samuel Oldknow was building his Mellor Mill, a steady flow of new people came into the area. At the time of its completion in 1793 Oldknow’s Mellor Mill was the largest cotton mill in Europe. In the 1820s George Andrew built Compstall Mill and in the 1830s Marple too had a mill.

This rapid change had a profound effect on the fortunes of the Derbyshire Family. John Derbyshire and his wife Mary came from Lancashire to work at Oldknow’s Mill. His son, John Derbyshire worked as a smith in the hamlet of Mill Brow but their son, George Derbyshire, worked in Oldknow’s Mill and became an overlooker. The family fortunes had become bound up with the cotton trade.

When George’s son, James Derbyshire, married Hannah Wilkinson in 1877 James was a book keeper in a cotton mill. Their daughter, Hannah Derbyshire, was born in 1878 but lived for only two days.

One year later, on 25th April 1879 a son, James Derbyshire, was born in Compstall. By the 1881 Census James Derbyshire was 33 and a cashier at a cotton mill and he had become the manager of Compstall Mill before his last child, Harold Wilkinson Derbyshire, was born in 1885.

He lived in Mount Pleasant – a large house overlooking the village and the family had a house servant. James bought many shares in cotton mills as well as beautiful furniture, china and silverware. He educated his sons privately.

Harold died in 1908 aged 23. James (senior) died aged 63 in 1911 and the surviving son, James Derbyshire, was killed on the Somme in November 1916 just thirteen months after his marriage. A daughter, Alice Jean Derbyshire, was born six weeks after her father’s death.

Initially the dividend income from her grandfather’s cotton mill shares ensured that she and her mother led a comfortable life. After the Wall Street Crash the shares became worthless.