Mr I V Hall writes ...
"THE St. JOHN'S BRIDGE SUGAR HOUSE"
"The legal documents giving the detailed information concerning the ownership of the land and
the property of the refinery can be found in the Archives Department of the Bristol
Corporation. They can best be traced by using the Plan Book "B" p.88, where there occurs a
plan of the property as it existed between l700 and 1800. This plan shows that a set of 15
pieces of land, which in 1700 were separate and independent entities, and which had during
the course of the subsequent century become aggregated, until by 1800 they formed a one and
undivided whole. Altogether they belonged to a City Charity, known as St. Bartholomew's Land,
administered by the Mayor and Co[...] Commonalty of Bristol, and as such, they formed a series
of leases granted, on the one hand, by the Mayor etc. and a different set of lessors on the
other. When each of these properties was a separate tenement or messuage, [they were] rented
by separate individuals on a lease of 'three lives'. By their use we have traced the ownership
of the sugar house, warehouse and accompanying outhouses over a complete century; they were as
follows: -
Edward Reed and Son .................. 1728?-1758
Henderson and Peach .................. 1761 -1769
Joseph Rigge .............................. 1770 -1784
William Miles and James Ingram ...... 1788 -1802
Bamford and Matthews ................ 1803-1818
Holden and Vining and Co ............. 1819-1832
Then another set of Corporation documents, the Apprentices Lists, the Burgess Rolls, the
Audits Books, the Charity Rentals, and perhaps most important of all, the Records of the Tax
Collectors and Assessors who administered the various Acts of Parliament at the end of the 17th
century - the Window Tax, taxes on Births, Marriages and Deaths, and finally the Clipped Money;
these are useful for particularising the various bodies associated with the industry during the
different partnerships.
The third source of information is a much less numerous and less important class - being a
collection of the Minute Books of the Stokes Croft Boys' School and the Almshouse, institutions
which were founded in the middle decades of the 18th century by the congregation of the
Unitarians in Lewin's Mead, many of whose number consisted of the wealthy sugar bakers of the
Lewin's Mead neighbourhood, men like William Barnes father and son of the same Christian name,
James Hilhouse, Edward Reed all of whom were connected with the three sugar refineries of the
district, all rivals to each other in their separate enterprises, but steadfast in the religious
beliefs at their one chapel. It was these families who financed these institutions, administered
their funds, and fostered the education and charity of the neighbourhood.
Altogether therefore these documents furnish a fund of information, which enables us to draw a
picture not only of the 18th century social conditions, but also of the commercial and
industrial life in Lewin's Mead district at an important stage of its economic development."
[By I V Hall. Original copy at Bristol Record Office; reference BRO 36772 Box 12]
Locate the Refinery (J) on Bristol Map
