Alice Mary Sophia Hurt

Alice HURT (1837-1894) was one of 15 children of Francis HURT (1803-1861) and Cicilia Emely, living at Alderwasley Hall. Alice never married. Her chief hobby was photography and many examples of her work have survived.... About 1860 she put together an album of her photos taken since 1850. Roger Taylor of Bradford, formerly Curator of Photographs in the National Museum of film and Photography, saw and purchased an old photograph album in a second-hand bookshop in Sheffield. It was Alice Hurt's album.....

The early proceses of photography involved the use of heavy and cumbersome equipment, glass plates and large black cloths. This 20-year-old female member of an aristocratic family was probably regarded as an eccentric as she trudged around the countryside with her paraphenalia....The HURTS were in a position to provide the finance for what became one of their hobbies.... The logistics of transporting the cameras and other paraphenalia was a problem which had to be solved and Francis provided a pony and cart to alleviate this. His diaries reveal that photographic expeditions were planned affairs and the remark "...the photograph cart was sent on ahead" occurs several times.

For some time she was a Nursing sister at Walsall. She died at Maidenhead in 1894.

There is a reredos altar to her memory at Wirksworth Parish church.