On 9th June 1768, Samuel Horatio Nelson Slater, the fifth son of William Alcock Slater, was born in a small cottage on the Chevin near Blackbrook, Belper. Six months after his 14th birthday and after his father had died, he became apprenticed to Jedidiah Strutt in the new mills at Milford, but at the end of his Indentured apprenticeship, aged 21, he emigrated illegally to America to seek his fortune.
Samuel achieved his ambitions by building machinery and mills, copying the designs
of Richard Arkwright & the Strutts, and becoming a millionaire! He was named the “Father of American Manufactures” by US President Andrew Jackson.
A group of his descendants in America visited Belper, and celebrated his birthday with a walk from Belper Mills to his birthplace on the Chevin, then on to Milford where he had worked before absconding to America. They spent another morning at the Makeney Hall Hotel with Stephanie Hitchcock, Jane Middleton Smith & Rosemary Timms exchanging new information about Slater’s life in England and America.
Here are a couple of photos:
1. Slater descendants below the blue plaque marking Samuel’s
birthplace on Chevin Road, Belper.
(Photo taken by Jim Hill)
2. Slater descendants at Makeney Hall Hotel with researchers of
Samuel Slater – Hero or Traitor? film and book: Stephanie
Hitchcock, Jane Middleton Smith & Rosemary Timms.
The film is now on Youtube: Samuel Slater – Hero or Traitor?
