The following information is taken from the website http://www.derwentvalleymills.org/education/section04h.htm

and includes reference to the Huguenots and the Lombe family of Norwich.

"The story of how the large scale manufacturing of high quality silk thread arrived in Derbyshire early in the eighteenth century is the story of the driving enthusiasm and inventive genius of a few key individuals.

Silk making in late seventeenth century England had grown during a period when fashion demanded luxury silk items, a demand that was met, in part by the Huguenot refugees from France who settled in England, many of whom were skilled silk weavers. Silk in England was woven from thread which had been imported from Italy which country had a monopoly on the silk thread manufacturing process.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Thomas Cotchett, a middle-aged Derby solicitor became interested in the commercial possibilities of silk thread manufacture in England using water-powered machinery. He turned to George Sorocold, an engineer, to build him a water-powered mill on an island in the Derwent near the centre of Derby. Cotchett installed a number of ‘Dutch Machines’ to spin silk thread but the project was not a success. The experiment might have ended there but one of Cotchett’s employees, John Lombe, who was probably apprenticed to Cotchett, was determined to take things further. He was convinced that if the secret Italian process of spinning silk thread could be introduced to the country there would be a large market for the high quality thread it would produce. John Lombe carried out a daring piece of industrial espionage, and returned to England with a number of Italian workmen and detailed drawings of the silk throwing machines which were used to spin the silk into thread. In 1719 Thomas Lombe was granted a 14 year patent on the process, and in 1721 he and his brother began to build a mill adjacent to Cotchett’s mill and Derby corn mill. Thomas Lombe was a
London based silk merchant who was able to raise much of the £30,000 needed to build the mill ( in today’s money this is about£2 million). The Lombe family were relatively well off silk weavers and merchants from Norwich.

The mill for the silk throwing machines was five storeys high and supported on stone arches which allowed the river Derwent when in flood to pass through them. It was powered by a single undershot wheel using the weir and tail-race of the town corn mill.
A second building, the doubling shop where the silk thread was doubled to make it stronger, was constructed in line with the mill.
This contained the doubling machinery which was all hand powered. There was also a warehouse, carpenter’s room and the mill offices.Lombe’s mill contained many elements of the modern factory. The machinery was driven from a common power source and housed in a large multi-storeyed building. A large labour force was employed – by 1730, 300 people are said to have been at work in this enterprise.

The great importance of Lombe’s mill was the system of working and the organisation of the labour force around the rigid demands of a common power source which, as the Strutts made clear, was an inheritance the later factory masters well understood."