Georg(e) Stade

Abstract In the 1890s, the German chemical engineer George Stade set up the West India Rum Refinery and Experimental Station in Barbados. The machinery was delivered from Germany and included the first modern column still on Barbados, allowing for distilling on an industrial scale and based on scientific methods. The company quickly became the largest producer on the island, a position it holds up until today. The chapter constitutes the first analysis of this case of technology transfer from Germany into the British Empire. It thereby supports new histories of transimperial entanglements before 1914, as well as respatializations of German history in global terms. The chapter argues on an empirical basis that histories of technology have, so far, been under-represented within these respatializations.