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My Gt Grandfather Frederick Hansing as a German born Sugar Baker living in East London. I understand that when Sugar Refining started in this country we did not have the relevant skills so the Sugar companies (or the government I'm not sure) shipped in Germans with the skill required. My Gt Grandfather was here in 1863 when he married in East London but I cannot find him on 1861 census. Does anyone out there know anything about this invasion of German Sugar Bakers, when it happened, where in Germany they came from and if there are any employment records or immigration records for these men still existing? Any leads would be much appreciated

Joanne, Maybe the site might help......... http://www.mawer*clara.net/sugarii.html ( replace * with . )

thanks I will check that out

Hi Joanne, My great great grandfather was also sugar baker who came over from Germany, very likely in the early 1860's. I can't find him on the 1861 census either but he married in St George in the East in 1864. Another site that might interest you is the Anglo German Family History Society which has various links and also information on Len Metzner's indexes. Rose

cheers rose

i have tried that site and it is really interseting

had a look and found my gt grandfather listed, however thinking back i may have actually given them the info myself!?! Does anyone know if there are immigration records from europe to england and where i would find them

Hi Ive got a Christian Bauer from Coblenz, Germany marrying in 1871 in Stepney. He seems to have done quite well for himself by 1891 had a servant and the family were living in a good part of London.

Hi Joanne, Have you tried searching the Catalogue at Nationalarchives.gov.uk . You can do a name search, he may be recorded if he applied for natrualisation ,worth a try. Doreen.

hi Doreen no i had not thought of that, thanks, do I have to go there and do you ahve to book or just turn up, any info you can give me on this would be great as I have heard it can be difficult to look at records there Jo

bump

Thanks Karen your a mate!

bumping up for Chloe

Hi Joanne, sorry didn't see your question until now,you can search the archives on line under the H O series (Home Office). Key the name and any dates and it will show any who may have applied, if you don't get any results try name variants . Also, you can just key Prussia or Germany, you will get loads of names of those that applied. Should you find anything that fits you will be guided to the full reference for the document, I think documents can be ordered on line abt £10-50. Good Luck. Doreen.

Like the previous posting I've only just seen this one. I also have some sugar bakers/refiners in my tree and in almost every case the name has been mistranscribed. It should be Dirs, but has come out as Dins, Dios, Oins. Very rarely is it correct. The same is possibly true for Hansing. There is a Frederick Hanson in the 1861 married to Ann, Whitechapel, Sugar baker. Also in 1851 and 1841 for the same area. Hope this helps. Geraldine

My Platells were also sugar bakers from Germany, and moved to the East of London in the 1850's. One of them, Claus, is on the sugar bakers database mentioned above. I found them transcribed variously as Platter and Platch in 1861. Looking at the images, their names had actually been entered on the page like that. The German handwriting style was quite different to the English, hence the reason I think why so many of the names are mis-spelt, apart from the fact that they were all unfamiliar names to the enumerators! There were 5 Platell brothers, and two of them I still haven't found despite looking through the images of the entire enumeration district. However, whilst doing that I came across several lodging houses in the area where the enumerator had written ''32 foreigners'' or similar - so presumably no-one in the house could read or write English and therefore couldn't fill in the census return. Many of them married and had their kids baptised at the German Lutheran Church in Whitechapel, so it would be worth checking the parish registers of that church. Richard

My great grandfather was allegedly Belgian,(Antwerp 1853) not appearing on the '61 either, however he married in London in 1877. Being an alien, we suspect that he would have been a'suspect' during the '1914-18 war, and would have had to register as such. He is not on any naturalisation list, because ( according to a search we did) as he died in 1920, his records would have been disposed of....... Has anyone any Ideas on this, please. Bob

Well I'm not so sure about that, Bob. My great-grandfather, son of one of the German Platell's, served in the Merchant Navy during the war and in fact was lost at sea when his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Quite ironic really - it really does show the stupidity of war. In any case, Belgium was neutral in WW1, and in fact it was the German invasion of that country that caused Britain to declare war on Germany. Richard

Hi Joanne All the immigration records are kept at the public records office at Kew. I have searched hundreds of them for my german travelling musicians who arrived in 1848. There were no end of them and loads were sugar bakers as well. A lot went to an area in London called little germany (can't quite remember where it is) so you could start with the census there and check every possible spelling. The enumerators were terrible at spelling. i've got loads of mine missing and i am sure there is bad spelling mistake somewhere. As regards the immigration I think you can look first at the national archives website to find what you need to look at. I don't know if you can order the lists. I doubt it. i imagine it would be cheaper to actually go to Kew. It was a very long time ago i went but i did actually find a naturilisation certificate after many hours searching there.

thankyou so much to everyone for taking the time to give all these suggestions, it looks like i'm going to be busy, but it will be worth it if I find my ancestors.. my nan told me their name was hansing, certainly that was the name on her marriage cert. Frederick was her grandfather so i am hoping that hansing is right, however who knows!! Any more comments welcomed especially if you have german sugar bakers in your tree.