Historian, author and tour guide Martyn Taylor looks at the history of British Sugar, in Bury St Edmunds, as it turns 100
Yes it is true, this major industrial sprawl of a factory that dominates the skyline of Bury St Edmunds celebrates its 100th birthday this year.
Sugar cane which originated in the Pacific Islands well over 2,000 years ago migrated into the Middle East and lands around the Mediterranean, becoming the main provider of sugar for the sweet-toothed populace of those countries.
Eventually it became a cash-crop in the West Indies, where imported slaves from West Africa worked labouredly in the fields, their masters growing richer day-by-day. So much so, by the mid 18th century there were 150 cane refineries in Britain producing 30,000 tons of sugar annually.
As so often has been said, the huge, landed estates of the upper classes grew larger and larger as did the owners waistbands thanks to their intake of sugar. It would take Britain nearly another hundred years to stop the abhorrent trade in slaves – a Bury resident, Thomas Clarkson, who lived in St Mary’s Square, being a promoter of the Emancipation Bill of 1833.
The Napoleonic wars saw the French ports blockaded unable to import sugar cane, by then work which had been carried out by a German scientist Andres Marggraf was proving that sugar beet could be grown successfully and financially as well.
Napoleon in 1811 saw to it that French farmers grew sugar beet and within two years the sugar they were producing was enough for that country’s needs.
Before too long other countries followed suit. The first British sugar beet factory was built in 1860 at Lavenham by a Mr Duncan; but it failed after a few years due to a lack of government support, though sugar was identified – especially in World War One – as an important crop not only for sweetening your cup of tea but also, strangely, as a preservative.
THE FACTORY IN BURY
An agricultural visionary, Alexander Deutsch de Hatvan, who was born in Hungary in 1852 and educated in Budapest and Berlin, was the head of the firm of Ignatz Deutsch & Sons. He greatly increased the sugar industry in Hungary, establishing beet-sugar factories at Nagy Surany, Hatvan and Garamvölgye.
As part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, one of the Central Powers, Hungary, was broken-up by the Treaty of Trianon and the Slovakian part became part of Czechoslovakia. It was from here, in Surany in Southern Slovakia, one of the largest beet processing factories in Europe that experts and managers in their field (terrible pun I know) left for England.
At Surany, the director's son was the head engineer, Dr Robert Jorisch, and another manager at Surany was Martin Neumann, an agricultural adviser. Both men were given a job and moved to Bury with their families in 1926 and 1927.
Martin lived at one time off Southgate Green and was the grandfather of actor and presenter Stephen Fry, while Dr Robert Jorrish would end up marrying famous author Norah Lofts, Robert moving to 8 Northgate Street, Northgate House.
The Sugar Industry (Subsidy) Act of 1925 had made financing any new sugar factories less hazardous, resulting in 15 factories being built between 1925-1928, making a total of 18 altogether – many in East Anglia and Lincolnshire.
The choice of sites was very important – close to water sources. The Mermaid Pits, off Fornham Road, would be taken over by the factory and converted into settling ponds for the washings from the beet. Run-off from the factory and its settling ponds was soon said to be polluting the River Lark, reducing fish stocks around Bury.
The third and youngest son of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, Walter Guinness greatly appreciated Bury and was elected to Parliament for the town in 1907 (relinquishing that role in 1931).
A ministerial vacancy had enabled him to join the Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture from November 1925 until June 1929, where his main success was in increasing the growth of sugar beet for a new sugar beet factory in Bury.
Sadly, he was assassinated in Cairo in 1944 by terrorists while on government business.
The land around Bury was considered ideal for growing sugar beet, local landowner Colonel Long was very supportive of the factory as he knew sugar beet was a good crop for the area, so a 45-acre site was chosen to the north-east of Bury and building commenced in1925.
This same year some 5,000 acres were cropped in the area, for processing at Bury. In July 1935 the government laid out legislation for setting up the British Sugar Corporation and by 1936 it received Royal Ascent for the growing, manufacturing and marketing of sugar beet, as well as refining. The outcome of this Royal approval was that the sugar beet factories which had been working independently of each other were now confirmed as part of the British Sugar Corporation.
CONSEQUENCES DURING AND AFTER WORLD WAR TWO
Like all arable farming during World War Two, the Ministry of Food controlled and dictated what was to be grown. The Corporation amazingly was able to generate the regulated eight ounces of sugar per person of the UK per week, by-products useful amounts of animal feed in the form of the beet-tops and dried pulp. In Great Britain, rationing was to the fore, sadly for those who liked sweets they had to wait until February 4, 1953, before they were taken off rationing.
A new sugar beet seed, Monogerm Genetic seed, was sown in the UK in commercial quantities for the first time in 1966-67. This, with the use of improved weedkillers, meant less back-breaking work for those hoeing and removing surplus seedlings. The sight of gangs of farm labourers toiling in the beet fields, no-more.
It was a common misconception that the British Sugar Corporation was owned by the government. It was not, however the government remained a shareholder in the industry until 1981, when it sold its share.
In 1982, the word 'corporation' was taken from the company name and the British Sugar Corporation became a public limited company, trading as British Sugar plc. In 1991, British Sugar announced that over the next five years £200 million would be spent on their factories.
LIFE AT THE SUGAR BEET FACTORY, 1945-75
The British Sugar factory in Bury was at one time one of the biggest employers in the town. A new access road, Holderness Road, with housing for workers was opened.
During the ‘campaign’ when the beet was harvested the number of workers was swelled by Irish labourers who came over for this period which, depending on the weather, could last from September to March.
Home for these hard-working men from ‘the Emerald Isle’ was a hostel that once stood just before the weighbridge; the hostel no longer there. These days, the workforce is nowhere as large due to advancements in technology and mechanisation.
Inter-factory sports days were always very competitive, cricket and lawn bowls the most popular. Trips to factories at Cantley, Peterborough and King’s Lynn were very much appreciated for their hospitality, with large spreads enjoyed after the austere war years. For the children, a makeshift cinema in a marquee was the highlight of the visit.
The outward coach journey meant a stop-off at some layby to enjoy the largesse of the corporation; the return at some suitable hostelry where a Coca-Cola or grapefruit crush and a packet of Smiths crisps (salt in a tiny blue packet optional) was a treat at the day’s end.
For many manual workers in those far-off days, these were the days of the ‘push-bike’, cars reserved for the better off.
Before the coming of oil-fired boilers to heat the water to extract the sucrose from the beet, the factory relied on coal. A spur from the main Ipswich to Cambridge rail-line brought it right into the factory.
The coal had to be sampled to ensure it was of the correct grade, quality and not too wet, it being weighed on the weighbridge – British Sugar not wanting to pay for water. Slag and iron ore that could explode in the boiler furnaces a definite no-no.
One of the unsung heroes at the factory was the pest control officer, aka ‘the rabbit man’. Before the days of widespread Myxomatosis he constantly patrolled the factory site’ especially the lagoon banks, popping off the essential ingredient of rabbit pie. Their burrowing could cause havoc. A brace would cost ‘five bob’ old money, 25p today
The five-month harvesting season began in September when the beet was lifted. A harsh winter, such as in 1963, could curtail output and sometimes ‘clamps’ ( straw covered storage piles) were used.
Until the Compiegne Way relief road was built many a local can remember the queues of overflowing beet lorries and tractors emitting their diesel fumes and trundling up Eastgate Street. At times they shed the odd beet, the evidence of these laying in the gutters on going to the factory. After being weighed on the weighbridge, the lorries finally deposited their loads into large heaps.
The beet underwent various operations: quality check, washing, sliced into strips called cosettes then steamed to get the sucrose out which was then dried, leaving sugar crystals. Nothing was wasted in the processing of the beet; washed off topsoil was returned to farmers at a cost, stones sold off, with pulp also sold for animal feed; the water returned to settle in huge lagoons.
Bury did not have a refining plant until the 1970s, when Silver Spoon’s massive refining and packaging plant was built, its silos dominating the Bury skyline. Incidentally, British Sugar was one of the first manufacturers to print bar-codes on its packaging.
TODAY
British Sugar plc is now owned by Associated British Foods (ABF), which bought the company in 1991 and is still the parent company today.
It is the United Kingdom's leading sugar producer, supplying the country with more than half of its sugar. About 7,000 farmers contract with the company every year, providing it with some nine million tons of raw sugar beet.
There are just four factories left, including Bury St Edmunds, Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, Cantley and Wissington in Norfolk (the latter the largest factory in Europe). The Ipswich factory, which closed in 2001, had its huge silos demolished in 2018.
When my children were growing up, if we had been out for the day, a welcoming feature on the horizon for them, indicating not far to go, was that of the ‘Cloud Factory’ – the clouds of steam emanating from the sugar beet factory.
Sugar Topics was the magazine of British Sugar for its employees, my father, a coal sampler at the Bury factory, had my birth with my twin sister Marina announced in the 1950 edition.
