Alderman P.M. Martineau JP, Eastern Post 7 September 1901
also printed in H.C. Dimsdale Sixty Years' History of an East End Parish (Henry Bailey 1901)
Sugar refining was the leading industry in St George's in the East
fifty years ago. Many of the refineries have been pulled down, others
are now warehouses. The 'waning' began about 25 years ago. Year by year
these refineries were closed; not one is now left; the last was closed
about 1885. But old inhabitants will remember the old names: Hall and
Boyd, J. and C. Bowman, John Davis, Dames, Wackerbarth, Goodhard,
Kück, Schröder, Wainwright and Gadesden, David
Martineau and
Sons. A splendid Board School has just been built in Christian Street
where the largest refinery stood, and which boasted the tallest chimney
in London. Sugar refining was for years the thriving business in S. George's. Very many hundreds of tons of sugar were manufactured weekly by the local refiners. These sugars were made from 'cane', and they were known to the trade as 'Titlers' (i.e. loaf), 'crushed', 'pieces', 'Bastard's Treacle'. Many allied trades flourished side by side with the refineries: coopers, carmen, charcoal burners, engineers, string and paper merchants, 'spice' men ['spice' was the euphemism for bullocks' blood, used in the clarifying process]. S. George's streets were full of life in those days from very early morning till dark and after. Waggons delivering hogsheads and bags of raw sugar; strings of carmen and carriers fetching away the refined; and from 9 to noon buyers from Mincing Lance walked briskly around the parish with samples in purple paper under their arms, calling at the many counting houses to bargain. It was a queer sight after dark to peer through the areas of the refineries and to see the half naked sugar bakers (as the 'hands' were called) scuttling about the basement and pouring the boiling sugar, from pans which they carried, into sugar moulds. 
The sugar bakers lived in the refineries; it was thought right to have
them on the spot in case of fire. A fire meant havoc indeed! Twice in
thirty years Martineau's in Christian Street was burnt down, each time
with a loss of more than £50,000. The sugar bakers in those
days
were all Germans, chiefly Hanoverians. It was said that Germans stood
the heat better than English. The temperature in a refinery was high
throughout, in the stoves which men had to work in daily it was 140
degrees Fahr. More probably the reason for German labour was that the
industry was originally German, managed by a German ('Boiler' was his
technical name), who liked to have his own little colony about him.Beyond question the sugar bakers were good fellows, hard working, cheery, loyal and steady. They came to England as lads and saved their money. In due time they went into the 'Public' line in our Parish, or returned to Hanover to marry an old sweetheart and to farm. The work in a refinery was long and hard and hot. The wages were good, and there was unlimited beer. The beer was a local 'sixpenny', and the average consumption was two gallons a day per head. If one walked about our streets then one often saw at the open door or window half naked well-fed Germans joking and laughing in the pauses of the work. They mostly ate beefsteaks. These were the 'good old days' of the trade. Presently beet sugar crept in, and the conditions of the manufacture were no longer the same. The East End refiners struggled manfully with the change, but when 'bounty-fed' loaf sugar from France and Belgium flooded the home market, one after another they succumbed. They could not make a living when Paris loaf sugar was being sold in Paris - apart from the question of duty - a good deal dearer than the same Paris sugar was being sold in London. It is often asked how, in the teeth of this, did Henry Tate [of Tate & Lyle], the London refiner, become a millionaire? Among other reasons three are suggested. (1) His refinery was not in S. George's, but on the riverside; (2) He secured a valuable patent, that of making loaf sugar into cubes; (3) He was an exceptionally able business man, and had previously been very successful in Liverpool. The German names still to be seen over some of the taverns and shops, and that excellent charity 'The Society of United Friends', still survive. [This refers to an Amicable Society established in Greenwich in 1834, rather than to the Owenite splinter group of the same name.] There is little else left now of S. George's palmy sugar refining days. |
A
close shave for St George-in-the-East
in 1854 [pictured right], for an improvement in refining,
or 'blowing up', sugar to produces syrups at lower temperatures by
using perforated pipes rather than free steam: a contemporary report
explained that the invention mainly consisted in
employing numerous streams of air, introduced below the sugar and water
when in a suitable open vessel or pan, and heated by pipes having steam
or not fluid within them. For this purpose it is preferred to employ a
series of perforated pipes near the bottom of the pan or vessel and
above them to have a series of heated pipes capable of being raised out
of the fluid.
Some
of the reasons for the decline of the trade in East London are set out
above by Martineau. The trade was changing, as refined rather than loaf
sugar came to dominate the market, and large refineries replaced
smaller units. In 1864 Gladstone altered the duties on sugar,
stimulating exports of foreign refined sugar to Hull and other ports.
Scotland became a rival. In the mid-1860s, local refiners brokers and
wholesalers had a particular grievance over what they perceived to be
inequitable tariffs on the carriage of sugar from London, compared with
the rest of the country, and addressed a Memorial on the subject to the
railway companies. The list of signatories makes interesting reading:
there are still German firms, but most of the traders have English
names. This memorial was considered by the Royal Commission on
Railways, and can be read here
together with associated correspondence. It forms one example of a
wider concern debated by the Commission, as railways - though in
competition with each other - were becoming powerful and developing
monopolies within the transport sector.Back to History page