Mrs Agnes Strutt
(1827-1900)
18 February 1862

Volume 6, page 36, sitting number 7016.

Agnes Anne Strutt was the wife of the cotton manufacturer and philanthropist George Henry Strutt. The daughter of Edward Ashton, she was born at Prescot in Lancashire in 1827. On 15 September 1846 she married George Henry Strutt at Belper in Derbyshire. The marriage produced four children but the youngest died in infancy. Agnes died in 1900.

The Strutt family were wealthy cotton manufacturers based at Belper. Their cotton empire was established by Jedediah Strutt (1726-1797), a towering figure in the history of the Industrial Revolution. He patented the Derby Rib machine and, together with Richard Arkwright, he built the first cotton mill driven by water power. Eventually there were eight Strutt mills at Belper and by the mid-nineteenth century the town’s population had grown to ten thousand.

Jedediah’s great-grandson George Henry Strutt was born in 1826. On 15 September 1846 he married Agnes Ann Ashton, daughter of Edward Ashton of Prescot, Lancashire. The couple had four children: Susan Agnes Strutt (1847-1894), Lucy Frances Strutt (1850-1914), George Herbert Strutt (1854-1928) and Clara Strutt (1861-1863). The family lived at Bridge Hill House in Belper.

George’s philanthropic undertakings included the construction of Christ Church, Belper (completed in 1850) and a substantial stone vicarage; the conversion of a building in Belper into a cottage hospital for convalescent mill workers (1870); the paving of the town’s market place (1880); and the donation of a fire engine to the town (1889). A commemorative fountain was erected by the townspeople to recognise his contributions to the town but it was never connected to a water supply. Perpetually dry, it still stands today.