Sugar; principal developments and events
Page last modified 14/11/2020
See
also Farming for agricultural technology and farming
Growth
of annual per-capita sugar consumption, kgs
|
|
UK |
USA |
|
1985 |
35.5 |
56 |
|
1923 |
|
47.3 |
|
1900 |
|
29.0 |
|
1889 |
33.8 |
|
|
1875 |
26.7 |
|
|
1872 |
20.9 |
|
|
1860 |
15.1* |
|
|
1800 |
5.8 |
|
|
1780 |
5.3 |
|
*See
1/8/1834,for sugar price drop after 1834.
1980, The flavour ‘salted caramel’ was invented by a French
chocolatier, Henri
la Roux. This flavour is highly addictive because it combines the
taste of sugar,
fat and salt. Since 2000 the food industry has added it to a wide range of
foodstuffs, not just chocolate and ice cream but in crisps, coffee, tea, vodka and yoghurt.
26/9/1953. Sugar rationing
ended in Britain, after nearly 14 years.
1951, The Commonwealth
Sugar Agreement offered tariff protection
to the expensive Caribbean sugar producers (where uneven terrain and
unpredictable weather made production more expensive than in the large scale
plantations of Brazil). Outdated production methods such as hand-harvesting
could persist in the Caribbean. In 2005 the EU began dismantling this
guaranteed price.
14/5/1942, Sugar rationing began in the USA.
1930, The sugar
content of UK-grown sugar beet had been
raised to almost 20%, from 7% in the 1880s.
1/9/1903, The UK banned sugar imports from Denmark, Argentina, and Russia as
part of a policy for preference for Empire imports. The TUC opposed this
policy.
1900, Sugar consumption in the USA per
capita was now 65.2 lbs a year, Global sugar beet
production now stood at 5.6 million tons, a figure that would more than
quadruple by 1964.
5/12/1899, Sir Henry Tate, of Tate and Lyle fame, founder
of the Tate gallery, died aged 80.
27/2/1879. Chemists Constantin Fahlberg and Professor Ira Pemson
in Baltimore reported the discovery of saccharin,
at John Hopkins University, Baltimore.
1876, British coinfectionery company
Slater and Bullock launched lettered rock. They soon began using the names of
holiday towns, starting with Blackpool.
1873, The emancipation of slaves in Louisiana had
resulted in a drop in sugar production
to less than one third of its 1853 level. In many areas, rice had been
substituted as a crop for sugar cane, as it was less labour intensive,
1872, Henry Tate (1819-1899) became aware of a
device for producing neat cubes of sugar; previously sugar had been sold in
jagged pieces chipped froma large block.
He patented the concept of sugatr cubes, his business grew massively, and he
transferred the emnterp[rise from Liverpool to London in 1880. Meanwhile Abraham Lyle
(1820-91), Tate’s main rival, had established a sugar refinery on the Clyde,
near Glasgow, in 1865. He also transferered his business to London, in 1883. In
1885 Lyle
launched a very successful product, Golden
Syrup. In 1921 the Tate and Lyle busi nesses merged to form Tate and Lyle, to better match foreign
competition.
1860, Sugar consumption in Britain was
now 34 lbs a year; in Belgium, 21 lbs (mostly in sweetened coffee).
1850, Less than 15% of the
global sugar
supply now came from sugar beet.
1842, France had nearly 60 sugar beet
processing factories, producing around 1 kg of sugar per head per
year.
1839, Annual sugar
production in Jamaica was down to 20-25,000 tons, from 70,000 tons in 1821, due
to the end of slavery. See 1/8/1834.
1/8/1834, Slavery was abolished in all British colonies.
£20 million was paid as compensation to former slave owners. This was a victory for the Anti-Slavery League, formed in 1823,
and their Parliamentary leader, Thomas Fowell Buxton. It also completed the
work of William
Wilberforce; his anti-slavery Bill, to abolish the slave trade,
incepted in 1789, was passed in 1807. This move gave impetus to the
anti-slavery campaign in the USA.
In South Africa,
35,000 slaves were freed as slavery ended throughout the British Empire. In Barbados
the slaves continued to work for their former masters but now as hired
servants.
In Jamaica, slave owners were compensated at £19 per slave.
However the market rate for a slave then was £35
(£2,000 at 2000 prices). Most of this money in fact went to
the plantation creditors, as the plantations were in debt, heavily mortgaged,
and in places declining in fertility through overwork. Additionally the UK
Government now moved from a Protectionist to a Free Trade stance,eliminiating
heavy duties against non-UK-colonial sugar,and sugar prices fell by half.
11/3/1819, Sir Henry Tate, the British sugar
magnate and philanthropist whose money and pictures formed the foundation of
the Tate Gallery in 1897, was born in Chorley.
1802, Chemist Archard
built the first factory for processing sugar beet, in Silesia (then Germany, now Poland).
1747, Andreas Marggraf (born in
Berlin, 3/3/1709) discovered sugar in beets, laying the foundations for
Europe’ssugar beet industry.
1725, Jams made from sugar
became popular.
1700, Annual sugar
imports into England
stood at 10,000 tons, having risen from
88 tons in 1665, as tea consumption (fueleed by cheap sugar) became very
popular. Sugar
consumption in Britain per capita was now 4 lbs a year.
11/11/1675, Death of Thomas Willis, physician to King Charles II
and to the Duke
of York. He was the first to notice an increase in what we now know
as diabetes
amongst his more affluent clients – he called it ‘the pissing evil’. He also
noted the very sweet nature of this urine. The wealthy in England were raising
their consumption of sugar, now being imported from the Caribbean,
both in desserts and in tea. In fact the issue of sweet urine and diabetes was
also known to the ancient Greeks, Indians and Chinese.
1636, Sugar
cane plantations started in Barbados.
1623, Brazil had 350 sugar
plantations, up from 5 in 1550.
1600, It was discovered that
fruit could be preserved with sugar.
1573, The first German
sugar cane refinery was built at Augsburg.
1532, Sugar cane first grown in Brazil.
1506, The Spanish began sugar cane cultivation in
the West Indies.
7/6/1494, The Treaty of Tordesillas was signed. In
1493, Pope Alexander VI had set a line
at 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands from north to south Pole; Spain
had the rights to colonise west of this line, Portugal to the east. The 1494 Treaty moved this line a further
270 leagues to the west. This resulted in Portugal having possession of both Brazil and Africa;
in turn this greatly facilitated the expansion of the slave trade, providing cheap
labour for the sugar
plantations.
325 BCE, First
reference by the Greeks to sugar
cane. Nearchus noted ‘Indian reeds’ that produced honey where there
are no bees. The word ‘sugar’ derives from the Arabic ‘sukhar’, which itself
derives from the Sanskrit ‘sarkara’, meaning gravel or pebble. The word occurs
in Indian literature from ca. 300 BCE, and sugar was now being grown in areas
of the Middle East where there was enough water. Sugar was then only affordable
by the wealthy.