Lever Brothers

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Lever Brothers

Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making process invented by chemist William Hough Watson. Lever Brothers entered the United States market in 1895 and acquired Mac Fisheries, owner of T. Wall & Sons, in 1925. Lever Brothers was one of several British companies that took an interest in the welfare of its British employees. Its brands included "Lifebuoy", "Lux" and "Vim". Lever Brothers merged with Margarine Unie to form Unilever in 1929.[1]

History

Starting with a small grocery business begun by his father,

glycerin and vegetable oils such as palm oil, rather than tallow.[2] The resulting soap was a good, free-lathering soap, at first named Honey Soap then later named "Sunlight Soap". Production reached 450 tons per week by 1888. Larger premises were built on marshes at Bromborough Pool on the Wirral Peninsula at what became Port Sunlight.[3] Though the company was named Lever Brothers, James never took a major part in running the business. He fell ill in 1895, probably as a result of diabetes, and resigned his directorship two years later.[4]

Lever Brothers entered the United States market in 1895, with a small New York City sales office. In 1898, it bought a soap manufacturer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Curtis Davis Company, moved its U.S. headquarters to Cambridge and started production at a factory located at what is now Technology Square. In 1925, Lever Brothers acquired Mac Fisheries, owner of T. Wall & Sons.[5]

By 1929, Lever Brothers employed 1,000 workers in Cambridge, and 1,400 nationwide, making it the third-largest soap manufacturer in the U.S.[6]

In 1949, Unilever moved its US headquarters and laboratories to Park Avenue, New York, and in 1959, it closed the Cambridge factory.[6]

Employee welfare and use of forced labour

Lever Brothers was one of several British companies that took an interest in the welfare of its British employees.[7] 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. The paternalism found at Port Sunlight did not exist in the operations of its subsidiary in the Belgian Congo, where Lever Brothers, through their subsidiary Huileries du Congo Belge (HCB), utilised forced labour between 1911 and 1945.[8][9][10]

Brands

By 1911, the company had its own

Léopoldville, in the western part of the Belgian Congo and was named after William Lever (later Viscount Leverhulme).[12]

Unilever

In September 1929, Unilever was formed by a merger of the operations of Dutch Margarine Unie and British soapmaker Lever Brothers, named as a blend of the two firms' names.[1] By 1930, it employed 250,000 people and in terms of market value, was the largest company in Britain.[7] Unilever was the first modern multinational company.[7]

The Lever Brothers name was kept until the 1990s as an imprint, as well as the name of the US subsidiary, Lever Brothers Company, and a Canadian subsidiary, Lever Brothers Limited. 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. The Toronto plant is now being redeveloped into an office and industrial district by First Gulf Corporation.[13]

Presidents

Among its presidents was Charles Luckman who in the 1950s championed the construction of the Lever House in New York City. Luckman left the company before the building's completion, moving on to a notable architectural career, including the design of Madison Square Garden, the Theme Building, the master plan for Los Angeles International Airport, the Aon Center, and major buildings at the Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center.[14]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b About us, 1920-1929 "1920 - 1929 | About | Unilever global company website". Archived from the original on 25 July 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2019., Unilever
  2. ^ Jeannifer Filly Sumayku, Unilever: Providing Enjoyable and Meaningful Life to Customers[usurped][usurped], The President Post, 22 March 2010
  3. ^ "Unilever: A company history". BBC. 22 February 2000. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
  4. ISBN 978-0-552-15087-3
    .
  5. ^ "Acquisitions and firm growth: Creating Unilever's ice cream and tea business" (PDF). Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  6. ^ a b "Industry in Cambridge: Lever Brothers". Cambridge Historical Society. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  7. ^ a b c Brian Lewis (2008). "So Clean": Lord Leverhulme, Soap and Civilization. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  8. ISBN 978-1-84467-239-4
    . First published as Travail forcé pour l'huile de palme de Lord Leverhulme: L'histoire du Congo 1910-1945, tome 3 by Editions Paula Bellings in 2001.
  9. S2CID 161485622
    . Retrieved 17 March 2018.
  10. ^ Buell, Raymond Leslie (1928). The native problem in Africa, Volume II. New York: The Macmillan Company. pp. 540–544.
  11. ^ Grace's Guide: John Knight Retrieved 1 May 2020
  12. ISBN 0-7190-4950-4
    .
  13. ^ "Old soap factory getting a facelift". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. 1 February 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  14. ^ Muschamp, Herbert (28 January 1999). "Charles Luckman, Architect Who Designed Penn Station's Replacement, Dies at 89". New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  15. ^ Lavoie, Joanna (27 January 2012). "Former Lever Brothers site sold to commercial developer". Toronto.com.

External links

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