Description: John Wheeldon, better known as John Gaunt. He lived at Sawmills but worked for the Midland Railway Company, travelling the lines as a ratcatcher.
He is the only person known to have successfully trained foxes to 'rat' for economic use, and claimed they were better than terriers becaused they could hold five rats in their mouths at once. The ratcatcher had to be quick because, unlike a terrier, foxes did not kill the rats outright. His best two foxes, however, were killed accidentally by gamekeepers.
Such was his national fame that he was described in a book as a 'great sportsman great Englishman'. He died, aged 73, at the home of a friend in Belper in November 1924, and was buried in Crich churchyard. He was also a prize-winning member of Ambergate Cottage Garden Society.