A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



of these large works the making of creosote 

 railway sleepers was carried on upon an ex- 

 tensive scale. 26 



Many leading firms of manufacturing 

 chemists have extensive works in Middlesex. 

 At Southall are the premises of W. Houlder, 

 Son & Co. ; at Poplar are F. Allen & Sons ; at 

 Ponder's End, T. Morson & Son ; at Houns- 

 low, Parke, Davis & Co. ; at West Drayton, 

 Alfred White & Sons; in the City Road, 

 Stafford Allen & Sons ; at Limehouse, Chap- 

 man & Messel ; and at Hackney Wick, W. C. 

 Barnes & Co., Ltd., and E. Beanes & Co. At 

 the works of Carless, Capel & Leonard, at 

 Hackney Wick, the various products of petro- 

 leum are manufactured on a large scale, and 

 oil-refining is well represented by Fenner, 

 Alder & Co. of Millwall ; Hubbuck & Co. of 

 Ratcliff ; and the Union Oil and Cake Mills at 

 Limehouse. Compressed and liquid gases are 

 produced by Coxeter & Son at Seaton Street, 

 N.W. ; and the British Oxygen Company 

 manufacture oxygen at Westminster. 



Paint, colour, and varnish manufacturers 

 are represented by D.Anderson & Son of Old 

 Ford, and Denton & Jutsum of Bow Common ; 

 Louis Berger & Son of Homerton, and Dugsjan, 

 Neel, & McColm, Ltd., of Millwall. "Of 

 makers of electrical appliances we can only 

 mention the Jandus Arc Lamp and Electrical 

 Company, of Holloway. Among the drug 

 manufacturers are Allen & Hanbury of 

 Bethnal Green, and Burgoyne & Burbidges 

 of Mile End New Town. The manufacture 

 of perfumery is represented by Hovenden & 

 Sons of City Road, and W. J. Bush & Co. 

 of Hackney. That of celluloid is carried on 

 by Frederick Hill & Co., at Kingsland. 



There are extensive powder-mills in the 

 parish of Twickenham, 2 miles from Houns- 

 low, generally known as the Hounslow Powder 

 Mills ; also at East Bedfont. 



Among the decayed industries of Middle- 

 sex is that of sugar-refining, which at one 

 time was an important trade in the east of 

 London. We learn from Stow that 'about 

 the year 1544 refining of sugar was first used 

 in England. Then there were but twosugar- 

 fiouses ; and their profit was but very little, by 

 reason there were so many sugar bakers in 

 Antwerp, and sugar came from thence 

 better cheap than it could be afforded at 

 London ; and for the space of twenty years 

 together those two sugar-houses served the 

 whole realm, both to the commendation and 

 profit of them that undertook the same.' * 7 



Sugar undergoes but little manufacture after 



* Crory, East London Industries (1876), 25. 

 17 Survey, 1720, bk. v, 244. 



it reaches our shores. The business of the 

 sugar refiner, or sugar baker as he has been 

 wrongly termed, is that of preparing from the 

 common brown ' moist ' the white conical 

 lumps or loaves of crystallized sugar, familiarly 

 known as lump sugar. This used to be 

 carried on in the neighbourhood of Goodman's 

 Fields, the factories being congregated within 

 a circle of half-a-mile radius immediately east- 

 ward of Aldgate. 28 The chief supply of Eng- 

 lish sugar came formerly from the West 

 Indies, where the sugar-cane was cultivated to 

 a vast extent. Its preparation for shipment 

 involved three stages : it was first a juice ex- 

 pressed from the cane, then a syrup from 

 which the impurities had been removed, and 

 lastly a brown granulated substance from 

 which a considerable portion of molasses or 

 uncrystallizable sugar had been separated. The 

 ponderous hogsheads which used to be seen 

 forty or fifty years ago outside the shops of 

 the retail grocers contained moist sugar, some- 

 what resembling that imported by the refiner, 

 but with a finer and softer grain. This sugar, 

 well known to the housewife in those days as 

 'sevenpenny or eightpenny moist,' had various 

 shades of brown colour, according to its 

 quality. This was caused by the presence of 

 molasses to a greater or less extent, but the 

 sugar was largely consumed in the condition 

 in which it arrived from the producing country, 

 this being possible, and even pleasant, with 

 the sweet and fragrant cane muscavadoes. 

 Loaf sugar (which was a luxury in the fifties, 

 even to the middle classes) and other sugars 

 of fine quality were obtained by purifying 

 still further the sugar of commerce, the object 

 of the refiner being to expel the molasses 

 together with other impurities which still re- 

 mained in the sugar as imported. The 

 factories for sugar refining were of special con- 

 struction, the chief object being to obtain a 

 large extent of flooring. Hence the buildings 

 were lofty, containing a large number of 

 stories, and being lighted by numerous small 

 windows. The interior presented a peculiar 

 appearance arising from the small height of 

 the rooms compared with their great extent. 

 As a precaution against fire, rendered necessary 

 by the inflammable nature of sugar, the re- 

 fineries were largely constructed of iron, stone, 

 and brick. The great increase in the use of 

 beetroot sugar made no difference to the 

 operations of the refiner. The hogsheads of 

 sugar or the bags of beet were emptied on an 



** Among the tenants of the Cutlers' Company 

 on their Houndsditch estates were many who 

 rented melting houses between 1584 and 1598, 

 the period for which the information is available. 



130 



