Sugar and its Legacies

Workshop dates: 27 September and 29 November 2024

Research participants (external): Dr Kawther Hashem (Lecturer, Public Health Nutrition, Queen Mary University of London); Jessica Sinclair Taylor (Deputy Director, Feedback and project lead, sugar pollution campaign); Carina Millstone (Executive Director, Feedback); a retired dental specialist who wished to remain anonymous; Dr Justin Roberts (Associate Professor, History, Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada); Dr Diego Bohórquez (Gastronaut)

Research participants (London Museum): Debbie Lowes (Visitor Experience Host); Dr Domenico Sergi (Senior Research Lead); Jean-François Manicom (Senior Curator); Jelena Bekvalac (Curator of Human Osteology); Ada Robinsmith (Curatorial Operations Coordinator); Sarah Cartino (Project Manager, Content and Collections)

Sugar is woven into London’s history, offering a powerful lens through which to re-examine the city’s story. The museum’s collections reveal sugar’s impact across multiple dimensions. From patterns of dental decay in archaeological remains to objects tied to the British trade in enslaved Africans, to the very building the museum occupies in Docklands.

These were discussed across three workshops with Londoners in a bid to understand sugar’s historical legacies and contemporary significance.

Today, London remains central to the global sugar economy. The London Stock Exchange and British Sugar, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, play significant roles in the financial landscape of the industry. Yet, the story of who truly benefits remains largely untold.

While the industry’s profits are privatised, its consequences – particularly the burden of ill health on London’s diverse communities – fall on the public purse. The long-term effects of sugar consumption, from dental health to chronic disease, continue to shape communities, especially those historically linked to empire.

Here, museums can act as spaces for change. With thousands of visitors daily, the museum has the power to shift perspectives and challenge the inequalities sugar continues to reinforce.

The workshops were a crucial stepping stone in shaping the research questions that underpin our current research on sugar, undertaken in partnership with the Centre for Public Health and Policy, Queen Mary University of London and the food campaigning organisation Food Rise.

The research involved bringing together people with lived experience, experts, artists, academics and community partners across three workshops.

The first workshop asked participants to connect objects from the museum’s collection, identifying key messages about sugar’s relationship to London.

The second workshop examined sugar through osteology – the study of human remains. Jelena Bekvalac, Curator of Human Osteology, shared how skeletal remains reveal consumption patterns across centuries. The collection showed evidence of children with decayed teeth from high sugar intake, mirroring modern trends. The session highlighted how socioeconomic factors influence diet, dental care access and public health outcomes.

Historical examples, such as workers’ tea breaks, demonstrated how sugar became embedded in daily life. The third workshop, held in Docklands, explored sugar’s legacies through this historically significant location. Discussions revealed sugar’s role in industrialisation, global trade, and its connections to slavery and labour exploitation.

The group considered activism, noting that in the 18th century, women and children led protests against sugar because they understood its link to the slave trade. A key issue emerged: while sugar created jobs and communities, defining “success” becomes complicated when weighing economic benefits against human and environmental costs.

The workshops identified four research themes that will guide further study and programming:

• sugar, bodies and everyday life – exploring sugar’s impact on health, migration and diet through visible traces in people’s bodies and environments.
• trade, industry and global systems – examining how sugar has driven economies, industrialisation and migration while reinforcing global inequalities.
• resistance, activism and social change – tracing efforts from 18th-century boycotts through modern health campaigns that challenge sugar’s exploitative systems.
• environmental costs of sugar – investigating the resource-intensive nature of sugar production and its ongoing environmental and health consequences.