Experts and the Development of the British Caribbean, 1940–62
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i General editors: Andrew S. Thompson and Alan Lester Founding editor: John M. MacKenzie When the ‘Studies in Imperialism’ series was founded by Professor John M. MacKenzie more than thirty years ago, emphasis was laid upon the conviction that ‘imperialism as a cultural phenomenon had as significant an effect on the dominant as on the subordinate societies’. With well over a hundred titles now published, this remains the prime concern of the series. Cross- disciplinary work has indeed appeared covering the full spectrum of cultural phenomena, as well as examining aspects of gender and sex, frontiers and law, science and the environment, language and literature, migration and patriotic societies, and much else. Moreover, the series has always wished to present comparative work on European and American imperialism, and particularly welcomes the submission of books in these areas. The fascination with imperialism, in all its aspects, shows no sign of abating, and this series will continue to lead the way in encouraging the widest possible range of studies in the field. ‘Studies in Imperialism’ is fully organic in its development, always seeking to be at the cutting edge, responding to the latest interests of scholars and the needs of this ever- expanding area of scholarship. Science at the end of empire ii SELECTED TITLES AVAILABLE IN THE SERIES WRITING IMPERIAL HISTORIES ed. Andrew S. Thompson EMPIRE OF SCHOLARS Tamson Pietsch HISTORY, HERITAGE AND COLONIALISM Kynan Gentry COUNTRY HOUSES AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE Stephanie Barczewski THE RELIC STATE Pamila Gupta WE ARE NO LONGER IN FRANCE Allison Drew THE SUPPRESSION OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE ed. Robert Burroughs and Richard Huzzey HEROIC IMPERIALISTS IN AFRICA Berny Sèbe iii Science at the end of empire EXPERTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN, 1940– 62 Sabine Clarke MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS iv Copyright © Sabine Clarke 2018 The right of Sabine Clarke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC-BY) licence, thanks to the support of the Wellcome Trust, which permits non- commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Published by MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS ALTRINCHAM STREET, MANCHESTER M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 5261 3138 6 hardback ISBN 978 1 5261 3140 9 open access First published 2018 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third- party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Out of House Publishing v For my grandfather, Leon Norton vi vii CONTENTS List of figures and tables— page viii Acknowledgements— ix Abbreviations— xi Introduction 1 1 New uses for sugar 21 2 Scientific research and colonial development after 1940 49 3 ‘Men, money and advice’ for Caribbean development 76 4 Laboratory science, laissez- faire economics and modernity 104 5 An industrialisation programme for Trinidad 129 6 Bringing research ‘down from the skies’ 154 Conclusion: Science and industrial development: lessons from Britain’s imperial past 181 Bibliography— 193 Index— 202 [ vii ] viii FIGURES AND TABLES Figures 1 Map of the Caribbean in 1953. (Reproduced with permission from the National Archives, Kew Gardens.) page xii 2 Map of Trinidad and Tobago. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.) xii 3 Norman Haworth. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.) 42 4 Aerial view of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, c.1951. The experimental sugar factory is in the foreground. (Reprinted with permission of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad.) 112 5 Staff of the ICTA, c.1951. Wiggins is seated in the front row, fourth from the left 116 Tables 1 Principal exports of the British Caribbean colonies in 1947 13 2 Population density in the Caribbean territories, 1950 15 3 Research institutions in Britain’s colonies funded by the CDW Acts, 1940– 52 61 Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material and the publisher will be pleased to be informed of any errors and omissions for correction in future editions. [ viii ] ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has its origins in my time at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Imperial College, London, and I am very grateful to David Edgerton for the guidance he gave me when I first began developing my ideas, and for the many times he has cast a critical eye over my arguments. I am also indebted to former colleagues at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford – Sloan Mahone, Mark Harrison, Margaret Jones, Karen Browne, John Manton and Maggie Pelling. I thank them for their encouragement, advice and friendship. In the writing of this book, I have been fortunate to have the benefit of incisive feedback from David Clayton and Henrice Altink at the University of York, and my gratitude also goes to Richard Bessel, Stuart Carroll, Bill Sheils and Catriona Kennedy for conversations that helped me clarify my thoughts. In addition, I want to thank several cohorts of students who have taken my Special Subject at York; their thoughts on the histories of development we studied gave me much inspiration and enormous pleasure. Versions of some of the chapters of this book have been presented at conferences and seminars in the Europe, the USA and UK, and the discussions that followed were helpful and stimulating. I would like to thank in particular Michael Worboys, Jonathan Harwood, David Killingray, Prakash Kumar, Desiree Schauz, Robert Bud, Mary Chamberlain, Viviane Quirke, Sally Horrocks, Paul Mosley, Fern Elsdon- Baker, Jon Agar, Brian Balmer, Jeff Hughes, Casper Andersen, Graeme Gooday, Wenzel Geissler, Rita Pemberton and Debbie McCollin. This book would have been impossible without a fellowship from the Wellcome Trust that enabled me to carry out my research and travel to Trinidad, Barbados and the USA, and I would like to thank the Trust for its support. The success of my research trips was the result of the help and expert advice I received from the archivists at UWE, St Augustine, Trinidad and the National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago, the Barbados National Archives and the National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, Maryland, plus of course, the team at the National Archives in London. I am extremely grateful to all of them. [ ix ] x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my parents, Tony Clarke and Francoise D’arcy, and Colette and David Holloway, for various kinds of help that allowed me to pursue a new career in history. Finally, I thank Tim, whose help and encouragement have been so boundless. [ x ] newgenprepdf xi ABBREVIATIONS ARC Agricultural Research Council BNA Barbados National Archives BWISA British West Indies Sugar Association CDC Colonial Development Corporation CDW Act Colonial Development and Welfare Act CDW Org Colonial Development and Welfare Organisation CEAC Colonial Economic Advisory Committee CMRI Colonial Microbiological Research Institute CPC Colonial Products Council CPRC Colonial Products Research Council CRC Colonial Research Committee CWT A hundredweight DCL Distillers Company Ltd DSIR Department of Scientific and Industrial Research EWMC Eric Williams Memorial Collection FRB Fuel Research Board ICTA Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture MRC Medical Research Council MSA Maurice Stacey Archive NARA National Archives and Records Administration NATT National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago PRIDCO Puerto Rican Industrial Development Company SCEAUCRM Scientific Committee for Examining Alternative Uses of Colonial Raw Materials STL Sugar Technology Laboratory TNA The National Archives, London [ xi ] xii Figure 1 Map of the Caribbean in 1953. Figure 2 Map of Trinidad and Tobago. 1 INTRODUCTION During the 1930s, episodes of violent protest by the inhabitants of Britain’s Caribbean colonies brought the extremely poor living and working conditions that existed in these territories to domestic and international attention. Revelations of widespread unemployment, squalid housing and malnutrition threatened the moral authority of British rule and provided fuel for critics of British imperialism. As a result, Britain made a commitment to improving living conditions in an area of the British Empire that it had previously neglected. This book explores the function of knowledge and expertise in the visions of economic development that were subsequently produced for the region, with a focus on the debate about encouraging new industry. Historians have often said that Britain was unwilling to sanction the growth of manufacturing in the Colonial Empire in order to protect markets for British industrial exports.1 In fact, officials in London saw the development of secondary manufacturing in the Caribbean as essential after the Great Depression in order to raise living standards and contain political dissent. Colonial Office plans included a vision of economic development that gave a key role to scientific research. The Colonial Office