In 1855 Henry Tate was a successful businessman, with a chain of six shops in the Liverpool area. Not content with buying refined sugar, he formed a partnership with a sugar refiner operating in Liverpool, and when that partnership came to an end, he formed Henry Tate & Sons, building refineries in Liverpool (1872) and in London (1878), specializing in cube sugar. Both businesses experienced difficult times, as sugar cane importers faced new competition from European sugar beet. However, the First World War destroyed many beet growing areas, and demand for sugar cane rose once more. By this time, Tate and Abram Lyle were refining 50 per cent of the country's sugar between them. In addition to building a global presence, Tate & Lyle were committed to research and development (R&D). In 1975 they were working with researchers at Queen Elizabeth College, part of the University of London, searching for ways to use sucrose as a chemical intermediate.