University of Derby Centre (now renamed ‘University Library’) was officially opened, having been built on a former car park. The University of Derby was fully invested, and in 1998 welcomed a synthesis of efforts with the High Peak College of Further Education, Buxton on Harpur Hill – a synthesis to eventually be amalgamated as the Devonshire Campus of the University of Derby Buxton, Derby's second campus, based at the Devonshire Dome. In October 2008, Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire was appointed as the third Chancellor of the University. In August 2012 the university merged with Leek College. The merger has created Buxton
William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire President of the Royal Horticultural Society in 1838, a position in which he served for twenty years until his death. It was this interest which led him to establish the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew as a national botanic garden. The world's most commercially exploited banana, the Cavendish, was named in his honour. He had acquired an early specimen, which he raised in his glasshouse, and this plant is the progenitor of almost all the worldwide varieties of Cavendish banana. Devonshire was also patron of The Derby Town and County Museum and Natural History Society. In that position, he was