The early factory masters, such as Arkwright and Strutt, harnessed the power of the Derwent Valley waterways to drive their industrial scale textile mills. How they overcame natural (e.g. floods and droughts) and man-made (e.g. competing mill owners, canal and drinking water abstractors) challenges offers lessons in river stewardship that could help today.

New evidence shows how the Georgian land and mill owners, with interests in the mills and the fisheries, found ways of supporting fish populations without harming ‘milling power’. Today, river regulators and stakeholders blame the industrial revolution weirs for the decline in salmon populations in the Trent catchment, leading to conflict with communities and asset owners wishing to utilise the historic weirs to reinstate, or develop, hydroelectric power generation to help mitigate climate change. Reusing the weirs, floodgates and sluices, as the Georgians did, may offer opportunities for win-win (power and fisheries) throughout the UK.