Joseph Wright of Derby painted portraits of provincial businesswomen, Sarah Clayton of Liverpool (1769), and Ellen Morewood of Alfreton (1782), Derbyshire. Although both women were actively engaged in the management of the estates and collieries they owned, and invested in local transport infrastructures, the portraits are markedly different in appearance. To understand why, this illustrated presentation explores their lives, business ventures and legal troubles in a masculine world. Dr Peter Collinge is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and…

Brief Encounter Erasmus Darwin makes a short trip to Matlock Bath resulting in the discovery of a new mineral. Erasmus Darwin often met with his friend Josiah Wedgwood at Matlock Bath, which was a convenient Derbyshire location to "take the waters". On one occasion he visited the establishment of a lapidarist, Thomas Pearson, where he purchased a mineral with which he was not familiar. He informed a fellow mineral enthusiast of the find which ultimately resulted in the discovery of a…

The late Desmond King-Hele's final biography of Erasmus Darwin bequeathed an intriguing puzzle. In 1864 Charles Darwin wrote to his friend Joseph Hooker that he suspected the widow of their former colleague Dr Francis Boott (Vice-President of the Linnean Society) was an illegitimate granddaughter of Erasmus'. Hooker confirmed he had heard there had been a close association and helped to fuel the suspicion by describing the old lady's features in quasi-Darwinian terms. Desmond was intrigued but judiciously unconvinced, bequeathing the…