Sugar House Lane
PLAQUE093
DescriptionSUGAR HOUSE LANEIn 1776 a Sugar House was established here, where raw sugar from the Americas was refined for resale. This was one of several businesses in Aberdeen which were involved in the trans-Atlantic trade of slave-produced goods. Sugar House Lane eventually formed in the ground which once belonged to the Sugar House Company.
HistoryThis lane cuts through a piece of ground which was feued to a group of merchants in 1776 to form a sugar refining manufactory. At the time the sugar business was highly lucrative and growing in importance: the raw product was grown in the southern states of America and the West Indies on slave plantations. The sugarhouse here in Aberdeen imported the raw product and refined it for sale to the public. Despite good circumstances the business here failed within a few decades and little else in known about it. This plaque was erected in 2008 at the end of a series of Heritage Lottery Fund funded projects which sought to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade within the British Empire.
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Sugar production in the 18th century saw an exponential growth as European tastes changed and the price of sugar came down so that it was no longer a luxury good for the very rich only. Demand for sugar remained extremely high and it was often valued as highly as gold or pearls. The British Empire was heavily involved in sugar production most of which took place in colonies in the New World, generally involving vast numbers of slave labourers imported specifically to work on the sugar plantations. Indeed for centuries the sugar trade was intimately bound up with the slave trade. Sugar was grown in the plantations of the colonies and then sometimes processed there or sent abroad for processing before sale to the public.
In the middle of the 18th century the process of sugar refining began to spread in Scotland. Glasgow, Greenock and Dundee, along with Aberdeen ventured into this manufacturing process. Trade was principally between the plantations in the southern states of the USA and the West Indies. The first sugarhouse in Aberdeen was set up by John Moir of Stoneywood on his own estate; Moir is principally remembered as a senior Jacobite in Aberdeen during the 1745-6 Rebellion.
The second enterprise in Aberdeen sought to locally refine the sugar for forward sale to the public in the north east of Scotland. On 8 May 1776 a sasine was granted of a plot of lands at the shore in order to erect a sugar refining business. The sasine was granted to Baillie William Young, James Burnett of Countesswells, John Burnett, Thomas Bannerman, Alexander Garioch and Alexander Young, all merchants in Aberdeen. They had formed a contract for ‘carrying on a Joint trade of Importing raw Sugars to Aberdeen and of boiling and manufacturing the Same…’. The piece of land which they acquired was described thus: ‘All and whole that Lott or piece of ground of the Shorelands belonging to the Town of Aberdeen lying immediately to the East of the ground belonging to William Gibbons shipmaster in Aberdeen containing Eighty feet in breadth from the west to East, and in length from Virginia St upon the north to the Quay or pier upon the South.’ (Aberdeen City Archives Sasine Register, LXVI, folio 254 recto) At this time sugar was often sold as a loaf, in fact a conical shaped solid figure of sugar which people would purchase whole or in part.
Writing in 1818 the annalist Kennedy noted about the Sugarhouse: ‘They carried on the trade of baking and refining sugar, upon a large scale, for several years; but, although their capital was abundant, and the credit of the partners undoubted, the undertaking was not attended with that success which they had a right to expect.’ (William Kennedy Annals of Aberdeen, II, p.216) This would mean that the business was probably wound up in the final years of the 18th century and never made it into the 19th. Kennedy noted that similar businesses had been successful in other parts of Scotland but that the two established in Aberdeen had failed: the first having been established by James Moir of Stoneywood. Kennedy also noted that the buildings of the failed enterprise on the Shorelands, were still standing.
Writing in 1911 the local historian Fraser noted of the buildings: ‘I believe part, at least, of the original Sugarhouse is still standing, and it was here that one of the first Industrial Schools of Aberdeen was carried on for some years.’ (G.M.Fraser Aberdeen Street Names, p.40) The later history of these buildings is uncertain: it is probable that they were adapted for general warehouse use, given their location.
In 1977 Hume noted that the building located at 72 Regent Quay was the sugar refinery and described it thus: ‘late 18th-early 19th century. A 7-storey rubble building, 2-by 4-bay, 5 storey and 2 attic store, with a 4-bay gabled frontage, and a 2-storey office, now used as a warehouse.’ (Hume Industrial Archaeology, II, p.88) However, in light of Fraser’s comments above it would seem that the building at 69-72 Regent Quay was not the original sugar house building. Moreover the 1867 Ordnance Survey map shows three different buildings occupying the site of 69-72 Regent Quay.
Sugarhouse Lane itself thus takes its name from the fact that this lane cuts directly through the feu which was taken by the collection of merchants in 1776. This plaque was erected in 2008 at the end of a series of Heritage Lottery Fund funded projects which sought to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade within the British Empire.
Location InfoCorner of Sugar House Lane and Regent Quay
NotesImage Attribution: watty62, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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