Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/84

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DERBY
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some of his rivals. He had another defect besides the want of popular power. He was so anxious to arrive at right conclusions that he sometimes turned and turned and turned a subject over till the time for action had passed. One of his best lieutenants said of him in a moment of impatience: “Lord Derby is like the God of Hegel: ‘Er setzt sich, er verneint sich, er verneint seine Negation.’” His knowledge, acquired both from books and by the ear, was immense, and he took every opportunity of increasing it. He retained his old university habit of taking long walks with a congenial companion, even in London, and although he cared but little for what is commonly known as society—the society of crowded rooms and fragments of sentences—he very much liked conversation. During the many years in which he was a member of “The Club” he was one of its most assiduous frequenters, and his loss was acknowledged by a formal resolution. His talk was generally grave, but every now and then was lit up by dry humour. The late Lord Arthur Russell once said to him, after he had been buying some property in southern England: “So you still believe in land, Lord Derby.” “Hang it,” he replied, “a fellow must believe in something!” He did an immense deal of work outside politics. He was lord rector of the University of Glasgow from 1868 to 1871, and later held the same office in that of Edinburgh. From 1875 to 1893 he was president of the Royal Literary Fund, and attended most closely to his duties then. He succeeded Lord Granville as chancellor of the University of London in 1891, and remained in that position till his death. He lived much in Lancashire, managed his enormous estates with great skill, and did a great amount of work as a local magnate. He married in 1870 Maria Catharine, daughter of the 5th earl de la Warr, and widow of the 2nd marquess of Salisbury.

The earl left no children and he was succeeded as 16th earl by his brother Frederick Arthur Stanley (1841–1908), who had been made a peer as Baron Stanley of Preston in 1886. He was secretary of state for war and for the colonies and president of the board of trade; and was governor-general of Canada from 1888 to 1893. He died on the 14th of June 1908, when his eldest son, Edward George Villiers Stanley, became earl of Derby. As Lord Stanley the latter had been member of parliament for the West Houghton division of Lancashire from 1892 to 1906; he was financial secretary to the War Office from 1900 to 1903, and postmaster-general from 1903 to 1905.

The best account of the 15th Lord Derby is that which was prefixed by W. E. H. Lecky, who knew him very intimately, to the edition of his speeches outside parliament, published in 1894.  (M. G. D.) 


DERBY, a city of New Haven county, Connecticut, U.S.A., coextensive with the township of Derby, about 10 m. W. of New Haven, at the junction of the Housatonic and Naugatuck rivers. Pop. (1900) 7930 (2635 foreign-born); (1910) 8991. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by interurban electric railways. In Derby there are an opera house, owned by the city, and a public library. Across the Housatonic is the borough of Shelton (pop. 1910, 4807), which is closely related, socially and industrially, to Derby, the two having a joint board of trade. Adjoining Derby on the N. along the Naugatuck is Ansonia. Derby, Ansonia and Shelton form one of the most important manufacturing communities in the state; although their total population in 1900 (23,448) was only 2.9% of the state’s population, the product of their manufactories was 7.4% of the total manufactured product of Connecticut. Among the manufactures of Derby are pianos and organs, woollen goods, pins, keys, dress stays, combs, typewriters, corsets, hosiery, guns and ammunition, and foundry and machine-shop products. Derby was settled in 1642 as an Indian trading post under the name Paugasset, and received its present name in 1675. The date of organization of the township is unknown. Ansonia was formed from a part of Derby in 1889. In 1893 the borough of Birmingham, on the opposite side of the Naugatuck, was annexed to Derby, and Derby was chartered as a city. In the 18th century Derby was the centre of a thriving commerce with the West Indies. Derby is the birthplace of David Humphreys (1752–1818), a soldier, diplomatist and writer, General Washington’s aide and military secretary from 1780 until the end of the War of Independence, the first minister of the United States to Portugal (1790–1797) and minister to Spain in 1797–1802, and one of the “Hartford Wits.”

See Samuel Orcutt and Ambrose Beardsley, History of the Old Town of Derby (Springfield, 1880); and the Town Records of Derby from 1655 to 1710 (Derby, 1901).


DERBY, a municipal, county and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Derbyshire, England, 1283/4 m. N.N.W. of London by the Midland railway; it is also served by the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1891) 94,146; (1901) 114,848. Occupying a position almost in the centre of England, the town is situated chiefly on the western bank of the river Derwent, on an undulating site encircled with gentle eminences, from which flow the Markeaton and other brooks. In the second half of the 19th century the prosperity of the town was enhanced by the establishment of the head offices and principal workshops of the Midland Railway Company. Derby possesses several handsome public buildings, including the town hall, a spacious range of buildings erected for the postal and inland revenue offices, the county hall, corn exchange and market hall. Among churches may be mentioned St Peter’s a fine building principally of Perpendicular date but with earlier portions; St Alkmund’s with its lofty spire, Decorated in style; St Andrew’s, in the same style, by Sir G. G. Scott; and All Saints’, which contains a beautiful choir-screen, good stained glass and monuments by L. F. Roubiliac, Sir Francis Chantrey and others. The body of this church is in classic style (1725), but the tower was built 1509–1527, and is one of the finest in the midland counties, built in three tiers, and crowned with battlements and pinnacles, which give it a total height of 210 ft. The Roman Catholic church of St Mary is one of the best examples of the work of A. W. Pugin. The Derby grammar school, one of the most ancient in England, was placed in 1160 under the administration of the chapter of Darley Abbey, which lay a little north of Derby. It occupies St Helen’s House, once the town residence of the Strutt family, and has been enlarged in modern times, accommodating about 160 boys. The Derby municipal technical college is administered by the corporation. Other institutions include schools of science and art, public library, museum and art gallery, the Devonshire almshouses, a remodelled foundation inaugurated by Elizabeth, countess of Shrewsbury, in the 16th century, and the town and county infirmary. The free library and museum buildings, together with a recreation ground, were gifts to the town from M. T. Bass, M.P. (d. 1884), while an arboretum of seventeen acres was presented to the town by Joseph Strutt in 1840.

Derby has been long celebrated for its porcelain, which rivalled that of Saxony and France. This manufacture was introduced about 1750, and although for a time partially abandoned, it has been revived. There are also spar works where the fluor-spar, or Blue John, is wrought into a variety of useful and ornamental articles. The manufacture of silk, hosiery, lace and cotton formerly employed a large portion of the population, and there are still numerous silk mills and elastic web works. Silk “throwing” or spinning was introduced into England in 1717 by John Lombe, who found out the secrets of the craft when visiting Piedmont, and set up machinery in Derby. Other industries include the manufacture of paint, shot, white and red lead and varnish; and there are sawmills and tanneries. The manufacture of hosiery profited greatly by the inventions of Jedediah Strutt about 1750. In the northern suburb of Littlechester, there are chemical and steam boiler works. The Midland railway works employ a large number of hands. Derby is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Southwell. The parliamentary borough returns two members. The town is governed by a mayor, sixteen aldermen and forty-two councillors. Area, 3449 acres.

Littlechester, as its name indicates, was the site of a Roman fort or village; the site is in great part built over and the remains practically effaced. Derby was known in the time of the heptarchy as Northworthig, and did not receive the name of