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The copper pot from the Papine Works, now on display at the UWI Museum.
Walk into the Aqueduct Exhibition and your eyes are immediately drawn to it. Sitting on a wooden pallet, battered and cracked, its surface mottled with rust and the dark residue of long-ago fires, this copper pot is one of the most telling objects we have put on display. It is not merely old. It is a witness.
Where it came from
The copper came from the Papine Works, the sugar factory that stood at the eastern end of what is now the UWI Mona Campus. It was used in the Boiling House, where cane juice was transformed, through fire and careful reduction, into raw sugar crystals. The Papine Works was powered by The Aqueduct, which channeled water from the Hope River system to turn a great waterwheel and drive the sugar mill at the Mona and Papine Estates.
The science of the train
Boiling houses did not use a single pot. They used a series of coppers in descending sizes, a configuration known as a train. Cane juice entered the largest copper first, was heated and skimmed of impurities, then passed through each successively smaller vessel until it crystallised into raw sugar. The copper on display was one of the larger vessels in this train.
“This copper is a direct material link to the water-powered sugar industry that once dominated this landscape.”
In the late 19th century, the Papine Lands were acquired and absorbed into the Mona Estate, then owned by Mr Louis Verley. By 1918, the Mona Estate was winding down. A notice from the Kingston General Commissioners advertised the sale of all sugar machinery, listing among the items a full set of four copper boiling pans and settings. The old water-powered system was giving way. The coppers were among the last pieces of a centuries-old industry to leave the site. This particular copper is believed to have been excavated during the construction of the Sir McIntyre Building. Thereafter it moved to the Estate Management Department grounds. Like many coppers today, a plant took up residence, flourishing between the cracks. Eventually with the help of 5 men from Estates, the copper was cleaned and transported to the Museum for exhibition.
The cracked section reveals the thickness of the cast iron walls and the intensity of use over many decades.
The marks of damage on this copper are a record of that use: of heat, of chemical process, of the labour of those who tended these fires. The stone channels and arches of the aqueduct, the remains of the Wheelhouse at Ring Road, the foundations of the Boiling and Curing House at the Norman Manley Law School, all belong to the same story. This copper pot is the fragment you can stand closest to.
Come and see it!!!
The copper pot is on display now as part of the Aqueduct Exhibition at the UWI Museum, located in the UWI Regional Headquarters building.
Contact us at uwi.museum@uwimona.edu.jm or call 876-977-6065. Open weekdays, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
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