Page 81 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 81
The Rijeka Trading Company
surrounding buildings, a park, and woods, quite far from the Company’s
main complex, was finished at the end of 1752 (Michielsen 1936, 30).
Sugar was the main product, and it was produced in all three plants.
Although in the sixteenth century, Antwerp was the European cen-
tre of the refining and trade of sugar, which in its raw form came from
Central American plantations and Dutch estates on the Canary Islands,
Amsterdam and London later became the main sugar centres, as did
Hamburg, which played a leading role from the middle to the end of the
eighteenth century. At the time of the Rijeka Company, it was there that
the European price of sugar was formulated. In the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury, there were hundreds of small, mostly family-owned, refineries in
Hamburg; at one point there were as many of them as days in the year 365!
Therefore, there were many master refiners, raffineurs, from Hamburg in
Rijeka, too.
The Company most frequently procured raw sugar in the Atlantic and
Mediterranean ports: in Bordeaux and Nantes, Le Havre and Marseille,
sometimes even in London, Liverpool, Venice, and also Lisbon. In the in-
itial years of business, production took place in three separate refineries,
a large one with eight boilers and two small ones with four boilers each.
Later, 24 boilers operated, four in each of the six refineries, in the main
complex at Brajda, in the plant in the large park at Ponsal (the remains of
the former Oil Refinery at Mlaka are there to this day), and in the plant
in the area of Brajda-Smrekari, where today the Maritime Faculty is locat-
ed (Hoffmann 2006, 54).
By the middle of the eighteenth century, sugar was still expensive
and its price was constantly rising; many derivatives were being pro-
duced, whilst the price depended on the degree of refining, as well as on
the prices at the stock exchange in Hamburg, which in the eighteenth
century also became the main centre of European sugar production. The
nuances of the different degrees of refinement could be divided into sev-
eral basic groups (Michielsen 1936, 35).15 The coarsest and cheapest was
lumpen, then several variations of melisa, then raffinate or rafinada, then
several of the finest kandis sugars, white and brown. Sugar syrup was also
sold – the brown liquid that failed to crystallise.
Along with the production of sugar and alcohol, the latter made from
molasses, the useless mixture that remained after refining, the Company,
15 ‘Lumpen, Melis ord., Melis fin, Pet. Melis fin, Rafinat ord., Rafinat fin, Candis-
brodt, Candis blanc, Candis jaune, Candis brun, Sirop brun.’
81
surrounding buildings, a park, and woods, quite far from the Company’s
main complex, was finished at the end of 1752 (Michielsen 1936, 30).
Sugar was the main product, and it was produced in all three plants.
Although in the sixteenth century, Antwerp was the European cen-
tre of the refining and trade of sugar, which in its raw form came from
Central American plantations and Dutch estates on the Canary Islands,
Amsterdam and London later became the main sugar centres, as did
Hamburg, which played a leading role from the middle to the end of the
eighteenth century. At the time of the Rijeka Company, it was there that
the European price of sugar was formulated. In the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury, there were hundreds of small, mostly family-owned, refineries in
Hamburg; at one point there were as many of them as days in the year 365!
Therefore, there were many master refiners, raffineurs, from Hamburg in
Rijeka, too.
The Company most frequently procured raw sugar in the Atlantic and
Mediterranean ports: in Bordeaux and Nantes, Le Havre and Marseille,
sometimes even in London, Liverpool, Venice, and also Lisbon. In the in-
itial years of business, production took place in three separate refineries,
a large one with eight boilers and two small ones with four boilers each.
Later, 24 boilers operated, four in each of the six refineries, in the main
complex at Brajda, in the plant in the large park at Ponsal (the remains of
the former Oil Refinery at Mlaka are there to this day), and in the plant
in the area of Brajda-Smrekari, where today the Maritime Faculty is locat-
ed (Hoffmann 2006, 54).
By the middle of the eighteenth century, sugar was still expensive
and its price was constantly rising; many derivatives were being pro-
duced, whilst the price depended on the degree of refining, as well as on
the prices at the stock exchange in Hamburg, which in the eighteenth
century also became the main centre of European sugar production. The
nuances of the different degrees of refinement could be divided into sev-
eral basic groups (Michielsen 1936, 35).15 The coarsest and cheapest was
lumpen, then several variations of melisa, then raffinate or rafinada, then
several of the finest kandis sugars, white and brown. Sugar syrup was also
sold – the brown liquid that failed to crystallise.
Along with the production of sugar and alcohol, the latter made from
molasses, the useless mixture that remained after refining, the Company,
15 ‘Lumpen, Melis ord., Melis fin, Pet. Melis fin, Rafinat ord., Rafinat fin, Candis-
brodt, Candis blanc, Candis jaune, Candis brun, Sirop brun.’
81
