Thank you, lizdb, avm228 and Clarijo.
What is a sugar baker? Why would he come over to the UK to do such work? Was Germany in recession, and why Liverpool?
Two or three snips from the Introduction in my book ...
" 'Sugarbaker' was the term used by the migrant German workers to describe themselves, though it was often used to describe other nationalities of refinery workers. The British sugar refining industry, by the very nature of the supply of its raw material from overseas, was primarily located in London, Liverpool, Greenock and Bristol, with German labourers predominating in London, sharing the load with the Irish in Liverpool, but being few in Greenock and Bristol. Many other cities and towns had refineries but only Hull, as an entry point for migrants, employed many German workers."
"As the 17th century European sugar industry was dominated by Amsterdam and Hamburg, the name was derived from the Dutch "suikerbakker" and the German "Zuckerbäcker", and it was variously written as sugar baker, sugar-baker, or sugarbaker."
"The vast majority of sugarbakers, escaping the lack of employment on the land and the consequent poverty, were unskilled labourers; stoking fires, unloading raw sugar, ladling boiling syrup, pouring bullocks’ blood, grinding animal charcoal, cleaning filters, filling moulds with hot sugar, loading ovens, etc. Skilled men were few, usually only the sugar boiler who ran the process and managed the men. In the larger refineries there would have been more than one boiler, but the "secrets" of the process were kept amongst "the few" in the early years. As mechanisation grew, more skilled men were required, but skilled in the management and maintenance of steam engines and specialist machinery rather than how sugar was refined."
(Sugarbakers - from Sweat to Sweetness, by Bryan Mawer, Anglo-German FHS, 2011. ISBN 978-09547632-7-5.)
In the 19thC there was serious unemployment within the German farming communities, particularly in Lower Saxony, north of Hanover. Young men were either recruited by sugarhouse managers or simply came to Britain seeking work. If they were not put up in the refinery men's room, they would likely lodge with fellow German refinery workers.
Liverpool ship owners soon became involved in the slave trade, sugar being the commodity they brought back to Britain on the third leg of their voyages. The first refinery was opened in the city about 1670 by a partnership led by a London refiner. The trade grew rapidly, firstly in what we now know as the city centre, and then moved north to the area around Vauxhall Road and Scotland Road. At the time Christian Fischer was there ,1861 and 1871, there were about a dozen refineries in Liverpool.
The living conditions for the labouring classes in Liverpool at that time was very poor ... courts, cellars, slums, etc.. For details try to find the excellent Liverpool - Our City, Our Heritage, by Freddy O'Connor, Bluecoat Press, 1990.
And lastly (sorry I could go on for a very long time
), for a graphic description of working conditions in a London sugarhouse c1876 go to
www.mawer.clara.net/greenwood.html .
Far more detail on my website (see below).
Bryan.
