William and Phoebe  (nee Wassell) Durose were married in 1881  They lived in Duffield until about 1902 when they moved to Blue Mountains with their family. 

Phoebe’s parents Samuel and Prudence Wassell moved from Staffordshire to no 18 Blue Mountains at about the same time, together with another daughter Prudence (born 1837) who lived with her sister Phoebe and family at no 15 until she married John Downs in 1896.

The 90th birthday of Mrs Phoebe Durose was celebrated in the Derby Daily Telegraph of 1950, (with a picture):-

  “Mrs Phoebe Durose of 15 Blue Mountains was born in Staffordshire in 1860.  She came to Little Eaton aged 21 when she married William Durose in 1881, and has lived for the last 48 years as a tenant of Blue Mountains Cottages where she now lives with relatives Mr and Mrs G. Miles (George and Annie Eliza).  She had 9 children, 29 grandchildren and 44 great grandchildren.”

We learn from earlier newspaper reports that Phoebe’s husband William died in 1936, aged 80, following a fall leaving the Bridge Inn.

Two of William and Phoebe’s 9 children died young.  One, William Samuel born in 1887 died aged 8 months.  When another son was born a few months later in 1889 he was named Samuel William.

Phoebe and William also lost 2 more of their sons, now adult and married.  Both died in 1933.

Three of the Durose boys served in the 1st World War.  Jack, the youngest, joined up aged 17 in the last year of the war.  Like his brothers he joined the North Staffs. Regiment.   Soon after the war, aged 21, he married Doris Bull in 1920.

They had 3 children Vera, born 1921, Edna (b. 1923) and Jack Vincent (b. 1926)  The children were very young when their father died following an operation in 1933.

Jack’s brother Ina Herbert was living with them until he married in 1927. He married Annie Eliza Radford and they had two sons: William (b. 1930) and Frederick who was born and died in 1932. William (aged 6 months) was one of several Durose babies who won “Best Baby” at Baby shows in the 1930s. The family lived with Ina Herbert’s parents, Phoebe and William at no. 15. 

When Ina Herbert was killed in a cycle accident  just a few months before his brother Jack died in 1933, his wife and son continued to live with Phoebe for many years even after she remarried in 1941.

In 1941 Annie Eliza Durose, widow, (nee Radford) married George Miles.  They had 3 children:  Margaret (b.1941), William (b.1943) and David (b. 1945). They lived at no.15 during and after the war and they could remember living next door to their half-brother William Herbert Durose.  George Miles (1904-1965) was a scavenger. 

The 1939 register lists:

• Phoebe Durose b.1860.  Widow. She died in 1953, aged 93

• George Miles     b. 1904 Scavenger

• Annie Miles (Durose)  Widow. Office cleaner

• George Miles (b1924) Apprentice to Glove maker

• William H Durose (b1930)  at school (son of Annie Miles/Durose)

Another tragedy was to befall the Durose family a generation later.  Jack Vincent Durose (b 1926), son of Jack Vincent (b.1900) and grandson of Phoebe, died tragically, aged 21 in an accident with his young wife Kathleen Valerie (age 18) in 1948.  They were fatally injured when the van in which they were travelling was in collision with a lorry (There is a report in the Derby Daily Telegraph with 2 horrible crash pictures). They had been married less than a year earlier in Welshpool, Montgomery but were living in Derby. Jack’s mother, Doris had married again in 1936.  She married Harold Wymer in Ashbourne.  She was named as next-of-kin for both of them.