Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturer founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James. It merged with Margarine Unie in 1930 to form Unilever.
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History
Starting with a small grocery business begun by his father, William Lever and his brothers entered the soap business in 1885 by buying a small soap works in Warrington. Using glycerin and vegetable oils such as palm oil, rather than tallow, to manufacture soap, they produced a good, free-lathering soap, called "Sunlight Soap", at a rate of 450 tons per week by 1888. Larger premises were built on marshes at Bromborough Pool on the Wirral Peninsula at what became "Port Sunlight".
Lever Brothers was one of several British companies that took an interest in the welfare of its employees.[1] The model village of Port Sunlight was developed between 1888 and 1914 adjoining the soap factory to accommodate the company's staff in good quality housing, with high architectural standards and many community facilities.
By 1900 "Lifebuoy", "Lux" and "Vim" brands had been added and subsidiaries had been set up in the United States, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Germany and elsewhere. By 1911 the company had its own oil palm plantations in the Congo and the Solomon Islands. Lever Brothers Ltd also acquired other soap companies including A&F Pears, Gossage's of Widnes, Watson's of Leeds, Crosfield's of Warrington, Hazlehurst & Sons of Runcorn and Hudson's of Liverpool.
Lever rode the cresting late-Victorian consumer revolution to build a vast industrial empire spread across the globe. Four years after William Lever's death in 1925 his enterprises were amalgamated as Unilever. By 1930 it employed a quarter of a million people and, in terms of market value, was the largest company in Britain.[2]
Unilever
The company grew and operated until 1930, when it merged with a Dutch company, Margarine Unie, to form Unilever, the first modern multinational company.[3] The Lever Brothers name was kept for a time as an imprint, as well as the name of the US subsidiary, Lever Brothers Company, and a Canadian subsidiary, Lever Brothers Ltd. Lever Brothers was sold to a US capital firm Pensler Capital Corporation and renamed Korex in 2008. Korex Don Valley assumed operations of the Lever Brothers Toronto plant. It has since closed and gone bankrupt.
Presidents of Lever Brothers
Among its presidents was Charles Luckman in the 1950s who would champion the construction of the Lever House in New York City. Luckman would leave the company before the building's completion to achieve a notable architect career on his own including the design of Madison Square Garden, the Theme Building and master plan for Los Angeles International Airport, Aon Center and initial buildings of the Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center.[4]
See also
- Lever Brothers Factory originally located in Balmain, New South Wales, Australia
- Port Sunlight
References
- ^ Brian Lewis, So Clean: Lord Leverhulme, Soap and Civilization (2008)
- ^ Brian Lewis, So Clean: Lord Leverhulme, Soap and Civilization (2008)
- ^ Lewis So Clean (2008)
- ^ Charles Luckman, Architect Who Designed Penn Station's Replacement, Dies at 89 - New York Times - January 28, 1999
