Our Story
A family who have cared for this community for over a hundred years
From a joiner’s workshop on a North Wingfield farm to the family funeral directors we are today, the business has passed through four generations of the same family, with the same care at every step.
The business was founded by William Rooth, known to the family as Uncle Billy, the great great uncle of the funeral director who runs it today. What began as one man making coffins by hand has been passed down, and cared for, ever since.
Uncle Billy, the founder
William Rooth was the son of Tom and Harriet Rooth, who lived on Draycott Road in North Wingfield, in the family farmhouse. As a young man he was apprenticed at Reeve and Kenning, learning the trade of wheelwright and joiner.
More about the apprenticeship
That apprenticeship echoed down the generations: many years later, another of the family, Christopher Rooth Hoult, would himself be apprenticed at Reeve Coach Builders. The family trade of working wood ran deep.
Serving in France
During the First World War, William volunteered for the Royal Naval Air Service. He served in France, carrying out repairs on the aircraft of the day, the fragile biplanes that were still a new invention.
The postcard home
Among the family’s keepsakes from those years is a postcard home, simply signed “Billy”, a small and human trace of a young man a long way from the Derbyshire farm he had left behind.
W B Rooth, Master Joiner
When William returned home, he established his own business, W B Rooth, Master Joiner, with a well equipped workshop on the family farm. There he was often called upon to make coffins, and he did it from start to finish. In those days, cremation was still rare, and, sadly, infant deaths were far more common.
How the coffins were made
He made each coffin entirely by hand: cutting and shaping the planks of wood, sealing the finished coffin with tar heated up on a gas ring, and finally fastening in the silk lining. It was slow, careful, personal work, the same care the firm still tries to bring to everything it does.
Jeffrey, known to all as Grandad
One of the helpers in the workshop was William’s nephew, Jeffrey Rooth Hoult, the man everyone would come to know simply as Grandad. In the Second World War, Jeffrey served in Italy, before being injured and sent to Egypt to recover.
Jeffrey’s early years in the workshop
Jeffrey could recall, as a boy, being sent to the timber merchant to fetch the wood for his uncle. Further injury prevented his return to active service, and at the end of the war he came back home to North Wingfield, and to the workshop.
Jeffrey takes charge
On his return, and despite holding down a full time job, Jeffrey helped his uncle more and more, both in the workshop and in conducting funerals, as William’s health began to fail. When William passed away in the 1960s, Jeffrey took charge of the business.
The move to St Lawrence Road
To Jeffrey’s abiding regret, the family farmhouse was later condemned as unfit to live in, and the farm and all its outbuildings were demolished, with houses built on the land. But Jeffrey had anticipated it, and had moved his family into a larger house with enough land to set up the business there. That house was on St Lawrence Road, and it is still owned by the family and used for some aspects of the funeral business to this day.
The converted railway wagon
With the support of his wife Sylvia, née Chandler, Jeffrey took the step of giving up his full time job to concentrate wholly on the funeral business.
The railway wagon workshop
In the early days he still took part time work when it was available. For many years he delivered the wages to British Rail staff working in the signal boxes around the county, back when staff were paid weekly, and in cash. It perhaps explains why Jeff’s very first workshop was a converted railway wagon. Later, he built the first proper workshop right alongside it.
J.R Hoult and Grandson
As the business grew and became more successful, Jeffrey took the opportunity to recruit his grandson, Robert Hoult, straight from school, so that Robert could learn every part of the trade from the ground up.
After much training and many years of experience, Jeff recognised how far Robert had come by putting them both above the door: his own initials, J.R Hoult, and his grandson beside them. It is the name the firm still carries today.
The same family, the same care
More than a hundred years on from Uncle Billy’s workshop, J.R Hoult and Grandson is still owned and run by the same family, here in North Wingfield. Robert leads the firm today, alongside Lindsey and the team, and the next generation is already learning the trade, just as Robert once did.
A great deal has changed since coffins were made by hand on the farm. A great deal has not. There is still no call centre and no rush, still the same belief that a family in mourning deserves the care of people who know them, and still the same name over the door to answer for it.
The communities we care for
We are proud to serve the families of North Wingfield and the wider Chesterfield area, and the villages around us, wherever we are needed.
Here for your family, as we have been for generations
Whether you need us today or are simply planning ahead, you will always speak to the family, and be looked after by people who know you. We are only a phone call away.