There may have been a Saxon village on the site of Derby after the Romans left. However the Danes founded the town of Derby about 873 AD after they invaded England. They created a fortified settlement at Derby. It was an easy place to fortify. To the east the river Derwent protected it. To the east and south a tributary of the Derwent protected Derby. All the Danes had to do was to fortify the northern approach between the two rivers. They dug a ditch and erected an earth bank with a wooden palisade on top.
The name Derby is derived from the Danish words deor by meaning deer settlement.
However in 917 the native Saxons captured Derby and it became part of the kingdom of England. Derby was more than a fortified settlement. Derby was also a place of trade. In the 10th century it had a mint and a market. Craftsmen would have worked in the little town, men like blacksmiths, coopers, carpenters and comb makers.
By the time of the Domesday Book (1086) Derby had a population of about 2,000. That might seem very small to us but by the standards of the time it was a fair sized town. (A typical village had only 100 or 150 inhabitants).
Like all towns in those days Derby suffered from outbreaks of plague. There were severe outbreaks in 1636 and 1665.
However Derby continued to grow in prosperity. Its cloth industry flourished. Other industries in the 17th century included brewing and, from the end of the century clockmaking.
In 1637 Derby was given a new charter and gained a mayor.
In 1695 Derby gained a piped water supply (for those who could afford to be connected). The water was pumped along wooden pipes by a watermill.
In the 18th century Derby was a fair sized market town. In 1717 the first silk mill in England opened in Derby.
All Saints Church was rebuilt in 1726.
Then in 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie and his troops occupied Derby but they left after only 2 days. From the middle of the 18th century porcelain was made in Derby.
In 1773 George III visited Derby and agreed that a picture of a crown could appear on china. Afterwards it was called Crown Derby. (In 1890 Queen Victoria agreed it could be called Royal Crown Derby).
Conditions in Derby improved in this century, at least for the well off. From 1735 oil lamps lighted the streets. In 1768 an act of parliament formed a body of men with responsibility for paving, cleaning and lighting the streets of Derby.
From 1821 the streets of Derby were lit by gas. In 1839 the railway reached Derby.
In 1840 a man named Joseph Strutt gave the Arboretum to the town as a gift. In 1867 Michael Bass, a brewer, gave land to the town to be used as a public park.
St Marys Church was built in 1839. It was designed by the famous architect A W Pugin (1812-1852). In 1842 a new Town Hall was built in Derby. In 1810 an infirmary was built and in 1877 a hospital for sick children was built.
The first public swimming pool in Derby was built in 1873. Derby School of Art opened in 1878. A public library and museum was built in 1879.
From 1880 horse drawn trams ran through the streets of Derby and in 1894 the first electric lights in Derby were switched on. Also in the 1890s slum clearance began in Derby albeit on a very modest scale.
In the mid-19th century Midland Railway Company began making railway engines in Derby. The railway workshops soon became a major employer. There were also many iron foundries in Derby. Other industries in Derby in the 19th century included brewing and paint making.
Derby grew rapidly in the 19th century. In 1877 the boundaries of the town were extended to include New Normanton and Little Chester. In the late 19th century many new houses were built in Normanton and Peartree.
In 1907 Rolls Royce decided to open a factory in Derby where cars and aircraft engines were made. Other industries in Derby in the 20th century were railway engineering and making aircraft engines. There was also a textiles industry.
In 1904 the first electric trams ran in Derby. They stopped in 1930 and were replaced by buses. Meanwhile the first cinema in Derby opened in 1910.
In 1916 a Zeppelin airship bombed Derby killing 5 people and in 1924 a war memorial was erected in Derby.
In 1927 All Saints Church was made a cathedral and City Hospital was built in 1929.
In the 1930s a ring road was built around Derby. Furthermore in 1933 John Logie Baird's Roadshow demonstrated television in Derby(The BBC began regular broadcasts of television in 1936).
Markeaton Park opened to the public in 1931. The River Gardens opened in 1934.
A new bus station was built in Derby in 1933 and the Council House was built in 1939-41.
Meanwhile in the 1920s and 1930s slum clearance continued and the first council houses were built.
During World War II 74 people were killed by German bombing in Derby and over 300 were injured.
After 1945 Derby council built many more council houses. The largest council estate was built at Mackworth in the early 1950s. Many private houses were also built. In the 1980s a large estate of private houses was built between Chaddesden and Breadsall.
An inner ring road was built in Derby in 1969-71. Meanwhile in 1968 the boundaries of Derby were extended again to include Littleover, Mickleover, Allestree and Darley Abbey.
An Industrial Museum opened in an old silk mill in 1974. In 1975 the Eagle Centre was built. The same year Derby Playhouse Theatre opened. The Assembly Rooms in Derby opened in 1977.
In 1976 Derby was twinned with the German city of Osnabruck and in 1977 Derby was made a city.
Markeaton Craft Village opened in 1987. Pickfords House Museum opened in 1991 and the Ram sculpture in Albion Street was erected in 1995.
Today the population of Derby is 244,000.
