In 1880, excited by sugar's recent rise into the ubiquity of British life, Charles together with his two brothers (also chemists)
John Joseph and Samuel began a sugar
analysis and consulting practice in Trinity Square in the
City of London. In 1881
Abram Lyle together with his three sons bought two
wharves in Plaistow,
East London to construct a
refinery for making
syrup. Impressed by the Eastick brothers' ground-breaking work, Abram Lyle invited the brothers to set up a laboratory at the new Plaistow Wharf refinery, where John Joseph became the first
chemist at Lyle's, ably assisted by his brother Charles. Initially the analysis of
raw sugar was established for the purpose of establishing price and duty payments, however in 1883 tough times importing cargoes of sugar bring production to a near-halt, so Charles and John Joseph
experimented with the refining process, of the bitter molasses-brown treacle-hitherto a waste by-product of sugar refining-into an eminently palatable syrup with the viscosity, hue and sweetness of honey, leading to Charles formulating the first version of the world's oldest branded product,
golden syrup. Under the leadership of his elder brother John Joseph the two brothers formulated the special methods of making brewers'
saccharum,
inverted sugar and
golden syrup. During the
Great War Charles assumed a national role, being responsible for administering the UK wartime sugar
rationing quotas, for which he was awarded an
MBE in the
1918 Birthday Honours. On his brother's return from Australia, Charles and John Joseph continued the analysis and consulting of sugar through the Newland Brothers practice in Dunstan Hill (inherited from John Joseph's father-in-law) and together with their brother Samuel, formulated 11 sugar refining related
patents between 1880 and 1919. Charles' youngest son Douglas took over the running of the Ragus operation, but when he joined the
RAF during the
Second World War, Charles came out of retirement and had time for one last
invention, "Golden Shower"
crystallised golden syrup. This was sold in grocery shops as a replacement for
honey. Charles died two years after the end of the war and in the 1950s Ragus passed to Charles' youngest grandsons Ronald and Barry, and the company today continues to be run by Charles' great-grandsons, Peter, James and Benjamin. ==References==