Roly Smith

Jedediah Strutt, developer of Derby Rib hosiery, is the latest in Roly Smith’s series of Derbyshire Great

Roly Smith’s new book, Short Walks to Curious Places: Exploring 50 of Britain’s Ancient sites, Myths and Legends

In different circumstances, Samuel Slater might be revered as a hero in his hometown, yet he became a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution in America – much to the dismay of Belper locals.

Roly Smith describes the life of Samuel Fox, Bradwell-born inventor of the folding umbrella

Roly Smith describes the multi-talented man who brought live theatre to a remote Derbyshire village

I have a special, rather personal connection to Thomas Cook, the Derbyshire-born so-called ‘Father of Mass Tourism’.

Florence Nightingale, the mother of modern nursing, is the subject of Roly Smith’s latest ‘Derbyshire Great’

The factory of John Smedley and Sons at Lea Mills, near Matlock, is the world’s oldest manufacturing works, and has been in continuous operation for nearly 240 years.

Despite a lowly upbringing in rural Derbyshire, James Brindley became known as ‘the Father of English Canals’ as Roly Smith recounts in the latest of his series on great Derbyshire characters

It’s been written of the distinguished 18th century physician, polymath, naturalist and poet Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) that ‘few writers can be so burdened with a surname which so clearly belongs to someone else.’