A Pybus Seminar in the History of Medicine by Dr Sabine Clarke (University of York)
Location: Percy Building, Room G.05, Newcastle University
Time/Date: 22nd February 2012, 17:00
'Sweet Dreams? Using Caribbean sugar to make fuels, plastics and drugs in the final decades of the British Empire'
Dr Sabine Clarke (University of York)
Seminars commence at 5.30pm and will finish at 7.00pm at the latest. Refreshments served from 5pm.
All welcome to attend.
Speaker’s summary:
During the 1930s unemployment, poverty and poor housing fuelled riots across Britain’s colonies in the Caribbean. One key factor that was thought to underlie the problems of places such as Trinidad and Jamaica was the falling price of sugar cane. In a radical attempt to solve the problems of the British West Indies the Colonial Office in London launched a new project after World War II to divert sugar away from use as a food, to use by industry instead. Researchers in Britain and Trinidad worked to turn Caribbean sugar into a fuel for cars and as a raw material to make plastics and drugs. In the words of one official, ‘science is going to save the old products by finding new uses for them’ and it was hoped that this would enable the Caribbean colonies prosper.
This talk will explore Britain’s involvement in a forgotten episode in the history of the development of biofuels and sustainable products. It will consider how this vision of industry based on using sugar as a raw material emerged in the 1940s and the problems that hampered the implementation of this particular vision of Caribbean industrialisation. Finally it will offer some reflections on the relationship between science and development.
Speaker's Biography:
Sabine Clarke is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of York. Her research explores the relationship between scientific research and economic and social development. Her first monograph is entitled New Uses for Sugar: Visions of Industrial Development for the British West Indies. Her next project expands on the theme of science and development and focuses on the marketing and deployment of DDT and other synthetic insecticides for farming and disease control in Britain and its colonies.
Published: 20th February 2012