"Beginning in 1544 and reaching its heyday in the 18th and 19th centuries, the sugar refining industry in Britain was noted for a high proportion of German immigrants. In fact, it was possibly the most common profession Germans worked in, hence the interest of the Anglo-German FHS in the subject. Society member Bryan Mawer has given the matter its first dedicated study.
Sugarbaking is a word literally translated from the German in the absence of an existing term to describe labourers in sugarhouses. Mawer describes the process as "the hot, sweet-smelling, unhealthy processes ... that killed our ancestors early". It was tough physical work, as Mawer explores in one of the chapters in this book compiled from his extensive combing of archives, old papers and firsthand accounts.
Three chapters form the main body of the book, of which the one on the work itself is the third. The first introduces the people who did the work, particularly through the stories of specific individuals who came from Germany - in the mid-19th century, censuses show that nearly 30,000 people living in Britain were of German birth.
The second chapter explores the geographic distribution of the sugarbaking industry, which had particular focal points around Bristol, Chester, Lancaster, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, each of which Mawer takes in turn to see what records, stories and buildings survive. Throughout, useful charts and original illustrations help to create a rich picture of an industry that has been largely neglected.
Family historians with sugarbaking ancestors will lap up the rest of the book too: four appendices provide background detail such as a list of sugarhouse fires (a constant hazard) and a directory of sugar refineries, while an index of surnames mentioned in the book runs to around 350 different families. Further resources are available at the author's website www.mawer.clara.net where more than 21,000 individual names are listed, along with wills, maps, refinery details and other resources.
Bryan Mawer is to be congratulated for spotting a gap the market and filling it with some impressive and accessible research which will interest anyone who is fascinated by industrial heritage." - Review by Your Family Tree magazine, June 2009
