Old travel Blog photograph of Lyle Road in Greenock near Glasgow, Scotland. Named after Abram Lyle of the Tate and Lyle sugar company, who was Provost of Greenock when the road was built in 1878. Abram was born on 14 December 1820 in Greenock, 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. Together with four partners he purchased the Glebe Sugar Refinery in 1865, 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. Together with his three sons he bought two wharves at Plaistow in East London in 1881 to construct a refinery for producing Golden Syrup. The site happened to be around 1.5 miles from the sugar refinery of his rival, Henry Tate. The sugar refiners Abram Lyle & Sons soon merged with the company of his rival Henry Tate to become Tate & Lyle in 1921. Sugar refineries belonging to Tate & Lyle continued as a major industry in Greenock 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 Ocean Terminal. Abram Lyle was Provost of Greenock from 1876 to 1879. An elder of St Michael's Presbyterian Church in Greenock. 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. " Abram 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. He died on 30 April 1891 and has a large memorial in Greenock Cemetery. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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