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Kirk Boott, the son of a Derby seedsman, left in the late 18th Century to live in Boston, Massachusetts, where he set up an import-export business. The business prospered and he often returned to Derby, mixing with such prominent members of society as Josiah Wedgewood and William Strutt.

Boott's grandson, also named Kirk, was born in 1790 and grew up in London where his father managed the English side of the business. Among Kirk II's acquaintances were Boston merchant, Francis Lowell, and his brother-in-law, Patrick Jackson. Lowell originated the idea of a model textile industry but died before his dream could be realised. In 1817, Boott visited the textile mills in Derby and, using the knowledge gained there, established a new textile centre on the Merrimack River with Jackson.

This new settlement was to have been called Derby but Boott bowed to pressure from Jackson and named it Lowell instead. Derby's William Strutt advised on the mills, while the town itself was laid out by Boott who designed the Church, basing it on St Michael's in Derby where he and Anne Haden had married.

In 1827, William Duesbury III, a descendant of the founder of the Derby Porcelain factory arrived in Lowell. William had sold the family firm in 1815 and failed in business twice after that. He worked for Boott as an industrial chemist and married Caroline, a Lowell widow, although he already had a wife in England. After fathering three more children, he took his own life in 1845.

Kirk Boott enjoyed his prosperity for a decade only, dying in 1837, but Lowell lives on with a population today of over 100,000 people.

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