Abram Lyle

He was born on 14 December 1820 in the seaport of Greenock, Renfrewshire, in Scotland, and at twelve years old became an apprentice in a lawyer's office. He then joined his father's cooperage businesses and in partnership with a friend, John Kerr, developed a shipping business, making the Lyle fleet one of the largest in Greenock. The area was heavily involved in the sugar trade with the West Indies, and his business included transporting sugar.

File:Glebe sugar refinery 200506 from Ker St.jpg, where Lyle took up the business. The original sugarhouse was on the left, now the site of an Aldi supermarket{{efn|Located at {{coord|55.953065|-4.76269|display=inline}} }}{{cite web|title=Glebe Sugar Refinery, Ker Street, Greenock|website=Buildings at Risk Register|date=1 January 2010|url=https://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/details/894652|access-date=2 July 2021}}]]

File:Tate and Lyle building - geograph.org.uk - 1124019.jpg

Together with four partners he purchased the sugar house of the defunct Greenock Sugar Refining Company in 1865, forming the Glebe Sugar Refinery Company, and so added sugar refining to his other business interests. When John Kerr, the principal partner, died in 1872, Lyle sold his shares and began the search for a site for a new refinery.{{sfn|Chalmin|1990|p=90}}

Together with his three sons he bought two wharves at Plaistow in East London in 1881 to construct a refinery for producing golden syrup.{{sfn|Dinham|Hines|1984|p=170}} The site happened to be around {{convert|1.5|mi|km}} from the sugar refinery of his rival, Henry Tate. In the first year Lyle's refinery showed a loss of £30,000, with economies being made by asking staff to wait for their wages on occasion, but eventually the business came to dominate the United Kingdom market for golden syrup.{{sfn|Maitland|p=198}} Lyle Park, near the site of the syrup refinery at Plaistow Wharf, West Silvertown, was named after him.

The brand, sold in a distinctive green and gold lidded tin with an image of a lion surrounded by bees, is believed to be Britain's oldest. The design of the tin decoration, which includes a biblical quotation, has remained almost unchanged since 1885.{{sfn|BBC|2006}} In 2024, the brand introduced a new logo for bottles of the syrup, with a visual identity designed to “refresh the brand’s legacy to appeal to a 21st century audience”, but canned syrup still has the original logo.{{cite web | last=Holland | first=Oscar | title=World’s oldest unchanged brand changes logo for the first time in over 140 years | website=CNN | date=21 February 2024 | url=https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/style/lyles-change-lion-logo/index.html | access-date=11 November 2024}}

In the Book of Judges, Samson was travelling to the land of the Philistines in search of a wife. During the journey he killed a lion, and on his return past the same spot he noticed that a swarm of bees had formed a comb of honey in the carcass. Samson later turned this into a riddle at a wedding: "Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness". ({{bibleverse|Judges|14:14}}) While no one is sure why this particular quotation was chosen, it has been suggested that it refers either to the strength of the Lyle company which delivers the sweet syrup or possibly even to the trademark tins in which the syrup was sold.

Sugar refineries belonging to Tate & Lyle continued as a major industry in Greenock (but with difficulties{{sfn|Glasgow Herald|1952}}) until the 1980s, then declining sugar consumption and a shift away from cane sugar led to closure of the last refinery in 1997. There is still a warehouse that was used in the past to store sugar in the town's Greenock Ocean Terminal.

File:Lyle'sGoldenSyrup.jpg as having the world's oldest branding and packaging.[http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/oldest-branding-(packaging) "Oldest branding (packaging)"]. Guinness World Records.]]

Lyle was the son of Abram Lyle and Mary Campbell. He married Mary Park, daughter of William Park, on 14 December 1846 and the couple had five sons and one daughter:

• Abram Lyle (6 October 1847)
• Sir Alexander Park Lyle, 1st Bt., (2 August 1849 – 10 December 1933)
• Charles Lyle, (1851 – 13 June 1929)
• Mary Lyle (1 March 1855 – 6 April 1927)
• John Lyle (9 March 1857)
• Sir Robert Park Lyle, 1st and last Bt., (17 October 1859 – 11 July 1923)

An elder of St Michael's Presbyterian Church in Greenock, Lyle himself chose the biblical quotation for the syrup tins. He was a pious man and a strict teetotaller, who once declared that he would "rather see a son of his carried home dead than drunk".{{sfn|Barrett|Calvi|2013|p=ix}}

Lyle was Provost of Greenock from 1876 to 1879.{{sfn|Gloucester Citizen|1877|p=2}} In late 1878, to help the unemployed during the Long Depression, the Police Board provided work building a scenic road to a viewpoint known as the Craigs or Bingens. In January 1879 the Streets Committee named it Lyle Road, and after it was formally opened on 1 May 1880, the name Lyle Hill came into use.{{sfn|Smith|1921|p=54}}

Lyle died on 30 April 1891.{{sfn|Beale|2012|p=73}} He has a large memorial in Greenock Cemetery.{{Cite web|url=https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3016219|title = Geograph:: Memorial to Abram Lyle Lairich Rig}}

{{see also|Oliver Lyle}}

Footnotes

{{notelist}}

Citations

{{Reflist}}

{{Refbegin}}

• {{cite web

| url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5388020.stm

| title = Sweet success for 'oldest brand'

| publisher = BBC

| access-date = 28 September 2006

| date=28 September 2006

|ref={{sfnref|BBC|2006}}

}}

• {{cite book|last1=Barrett|first1=Duncan |author1-link=Duncan Barrett|last2=Calvi|first2=Nuala |title=The Sugar Girls: Tales of Hardship, Love and Happiness in Tate & Lyle's East End|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HIJNNAEACAAJ|year=2013|publisher=Ulverscroft Large Print Books|isbn=978-1-4448-1369-2}}
• {{cite book|last1=Dinham|first1=Barbara |last2=Hines|first2=Colin |title=Agribusiness in Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PdeFFghZkTEC&pg=PA170|year=1984|publisher=Africa World Press|isbn=978-0-86543-003-7}}
• {{cite book|last=Chalmin|first=Philippe |title=The Making of a Sugar Giant: Tate and Lyle, 1859-1989|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bOPogF8v9-kC&pg=PA90|year=1990|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-3-7186-0434-0}}
• {{cite book|last=Beale|first=Nicholas |title=Constructive Engagement: Directors and Investors in Action|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aoV22XMeZswC&pg=PA73|year=2012|publisher=Gower Publishing|isbn=978-1-4094-5782-4}}
• {{Cite news

| title = Greenock Sugar Refinery to close next month

| newspaper= The Glasgow Herald

| date = 12 June 1952

|page= 6 col E

| access-date = 19 September 2014

| url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2507&dat=19520612&id=BU1AAAAAIBAJ&pg=5430,4096109

| ref = {{sfnref|Glasgow Herald|1952}}

| via = Google News Archive Search

}}

• {{cite book|last=Maitland|first=Vanessa |title=County of Pembroke, Shipwreck Report: Port of Ngqura, South Africa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=25LMysoBkNEC&pg=PA198|publisher=Vanessa Maitland}}
• {{Cite news

| title = Representation of Greenock

| page= 2 col D

| newspaper= Gloucester Citizen

| date = 8 December 1877

| access-date = 19 September 2014

| url = http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000325/18771208/012/0002

| via= British Newspaper Archive

|ref={{sfnref|Gloucester Citizen|1877|p=2}}

}}

• {{Citation

| last = Smith

| first = R.M.

| year = 1921

| title = The History of Greenock

| publisher = Orr, Pollock & Co

| place = Greenock

| page =

| url = https://www.inverclyde.gov.uk/community-life-and-leisure/heritage-services/watt-library/local-history/local-history-books-online/the-arran

| accessdate =

}} (Inverclyde Council website)

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite book|last=Hugill|first=Antony |title=Sugar and all that: a history of Tate & Lyle|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K2DtAAAAMAAJ|year=1978|publisher=Gentry Books|isbn=9780856140488 }}
• {{cite book|author=Kirby Rosplock|title=The Complete Family Office Handbook: A Guide for Affluent Families and the Advisors Who Serve Them|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lZWOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT289|date=2014|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-118-41701-0}}
• {{Cite news

| title = Sugar Trade Amalgamation

| page= 8 col E

| newspaper= Western Daily Press

| date = 22 July 1921

| access-date = 19 September 2014

| url = http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000264/19210722/077/0008

| via= British Newspaper Archive

}}

• {{cite book|last=Hutcheson|first=John M. |title=Notes on the sugar industry of the United Kingdom|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b20gAQAAMAAJ|year=1901|publisher=James M'Kelvie}}

{{refend}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060427004939/http://www.tateandlyle.com/TateAndLyle/our_business/history/history_timeline.htm Tate & Lyle (History)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080220175830/http://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/LylesGoldenSyrup/PastPresent/default.htm Lyle's Golden Syrup (History)]
• [https://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/c/artist/peter-cattrell/object/preparing-cloths-for-the-filter-presses-glebe-sugar-refinery-greenock-pgp-310-3 Preparing cloths for the filter presses, Glebe Sugar Refinery, Greenock]
• [http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/details/894652 Glebe Sugar Refinery, Ker Street, Greenock]
• [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~macfie/sugaroperations.html The Macfie Family Sugar Refining Enterprises]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyle, Abram}}

Category:1820 births

Category:1891 deaths

Category:Food processing in London

Category:People from Greenock

Category:Food manufacturers of Scotland

Category:Merchants from the British West Indies

Category:Tate & Lyle people

Category:19th-century Scottish businesspeople

Category:Scottish company founders