In the nineteenth century, Bridge Street, Derby had a proud and strong reputation and although it is connected with former slum areas in the town, it has a remarkable and lively history. There is a strong link to health issues in all the properties we will be looking into. The people and its buildings have gone but its stories still remain. Bridge Street today is still a main road in Derby city centre featuring buildings like schools and nurseries. In the nineteenth century, it was bustling with traders, residents, and disease, and even featured a hospital.  

In 1854, a soap factory on Bridge Street was embroiled in a controversy, with one of the greatest ‘stinks’ that entered the liberty-loving noses of Aldermen, inspectors, and residents alike. 

In 1858, Number 2, Cavendish Buildings, Bridge Street was the site for Derby’s largest funeral directors, who began trading from the embers of Leonard Wathall’s cabinet-making and furniture-brokering business and is still trading today. 

In 1884, a dairyman on Bridge Street was affected when a huge outbreak of Typhoid fever broke out in Derby and the source was shown to be milk. He lived at 21 Bridge Street. 

In 1891 the Derbyshire Hospital for Women was established at No. 20, and a two-storey wing, with first-floor accommodation including a ward bathroom and operating room, was added by the firm of Walker and Slater. 

These narratives combined paint an eventful picture of Bridge Street in the nineteenth century and, in the process, provide a social history of culture, health, and politics. To repeat historian E.P Thompson’s words, we are highlighting the ‘…blind alleys, the lost causes and the losers…’ from history, and in doing so, we are rescuing the stories of Bridge Street from the ‘condescension of posterity’.[1]

by Jordan Carr, Lauryn Childs, Jon Hawkins and Milly Walker

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[1] Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working Class (London: Penguin Group, 2013), p.12.