5 - Technological change, the British market, and African producers

Summary

The 1850s marked the heyday of the palm oil trade. In 1854 the British price of palm oil reached, according to some calculations, £48 a ton, a price it would not touch again in the nineteenth century. Similarly in the 1855–9 quinquennium, the value of British imports passed the £1.5 million p.a. mark, a level that they were to stay at or around until the mid-1870s. Observers, indeed, spoke of the 1850s as the golden age of the trade. Heddle, in 1857, commented on ‘the marvellous progress of the present palm oil trade’ and predicted an ever increasing future. Profits appeared to be growing; it was at this time that observers spoke of the ‘colossal fortunes’ to be made in the trade. It was the Crimean War of 1854–6, disrupting as it did Russian tallow supplies, that underlay this period of prosperity, but developments in the British market appeared to suggest that this expansion in the trade was here to stay. Changes in soap and candle processing were expanding the oil market; equally the growth of the tinplate industry provided increasing demand for the commodity. Richard King reflected the confidence of many in the trade when he described palm oil in 1853 as ‘ one of the most valuable articles of the present age’. The difficulties facing the Africa trade at the time of abolition had clearly been overcome.

The optimism of the 1850s for the future of the oil trade was reinforced by the commencement, in 1852, of a regular steamship service between Britain and West Africa. In August of that year the African Steam Ship Co. was incorporated by royal charter to undertake the contract awarded by the British government to carry mail by steamship to West Africa.