Home and Colonial Investments
It was recommended that a plant- small, but on a factory basis - should be erected in England in order to test the De Vecchis system of beet sugar manufacture experimentally.
Subsequently to the publication of the report to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries by a technical commission - Mr John Bowden, Dr William Goodwin and Dr B. J. Owen, a company - Home and Colonial Investments Ltd.- in which Mr Charles Cottier was interested, acquired the patents governing the De Vecchis process in all countries save Italy and presented the British rights to the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries.
The Ministry decided that a scheme of research to cover a period of two years should be formulated on the lines or the recommendations made by the Commission, and to make a grant which might enable work to begun.
in October, 1925. The Institute of Agricultural Engineering in Oxford got to work with commendable celerity. It immediately started research on a laboratory scale at its building in St. Giles, Oxford, and it acquired a site of about 3 acres in extent at Eynsham, which is some 6 miles from Oxford and quite near a large extent of country suitable for the growing of sugar beet.