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The British manufacturer Lever Brothers was founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme

William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme was an England Industrialist, philanthropist and colonialist....
 and his brother, James.

In 1885 they bought a small soap
SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks....
 works in Warrington
Warrington

Warrington is a large town, borough status in the United Kingdom and unitary authority area in Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley....
. Using glycerin and vegetable oils such as palm oil
Palm oil

Palm oil is an edible Vegetable fats and oils derived from the fruit of the Arecaceae Elaeis oil palm. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million tonnes were produced worldwide in 2004....
, rather than tallow
Tallow

Tallow is a rendering form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation....
, to manufacture soap, they produced a good, free-lathering soap, called "Sunlight Soap
Sunlight (cleaning product)

Sunlight is a brand of household soap originally produced by the United Kingdom company Lever Brothers in 1884. Designed for washing clothes and general household use, the success of the product led to the name for the company's village for its workers, Port Sunlight....
", at a rate of 450 tons per week by 1888.






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Leverhousenewyork
The British manufacturer Lever Brothers was founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever
William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme

William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme was an England Industrialist, philanthropist and colonialist....
 and his brother, James.

In 1885 they bought a small soap
SOAP

SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks....
 works in Warrington
Warrington

Warrington is a large town, borough status in the United Kingdom and unitary authority area in Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley....
. Using glycerin and vegetable oils such as palm oil
Palm oil

Palm oil is an edible Vegetable fats and oils derived from the fruit of the Arecaceae Elaeis oil palm. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million tonnes were produced worldwide in 2004....
, rather than tallow
Tallow

Tallow is a rendering form of beef or mutton fat, processed from suet. It is solid at room temperature. Unlike suet, tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration to prevent decomposition, provided it is kept in an airtight container to prevent oxidation....
, to manufacture soap, they produced a good, free-lathering soap, called "Sunlight Soap
Sunlight (cleaning product)

Sunlight is a brand of household soap originally produced by the United Kingdom company Lever Brothers in 1884. Designed for washing clothes and general household use, the success of the product led to the name for the company's village for its workers, Port Sunlight....
", at a rate of 450 tons per week by 1888. Larger premises were built on marshes at Bromborough Pool
Bromborough

Bromborough is a small town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the Wirral Peninsula, to the south of Bebington and to the north of Eastham, Merseyside....
 on the Wirral Peninsula
Wirral Peninsula

Wirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, Wales, which forms the boundary with Wales, and to the east by the River Mersey....
 at what became "Port Sunlight
Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight is a model village on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside, England. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, and between 1894 and 1974 formed part of Bebington urban district within the county of Cheshire....
".

Lever Brothers was one of several British companies that took a interest in the welfare of its employees. The model village
Model village

Model villages were created in the United Kingdom by some of the first industrialists. Eighteenth-century industrialists such as Richard Arkwright and Wedgwood built housing for their workers, but fully developed settlements are more typical of the nineteenth century and continue into the twentieth....
 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
Lifebuoy (soap)

Lifebuoy is a brand of soap containing phenol originally marketed by Lever Brothers in England beginning in 1895....
", "Lux
Lux (soap)

Lux soap was first launched in the UK in 1899 as a flaked version of Sunlight soap. Subsequently it was launched in the US in 1916, and marketed as a laundry soap targeted specifically at 'delicates'....
" and "Vim
Vim (cleaning product)

Vim is the name of a range of household cleaning products produced by Lever Brothers....
" 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
Oil palm

The oil palms comprise two species of the Arecaceae, or palm family. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African Oil Palm Elaeis guineensis is native to west Africa, occurring between Angola and Gambia, while the American Oil Palm Elaeis oleifera is native to tropical Central America and South A...
 plantations in the Congo and the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands

For the group of islands rather than the nation, see Solomon Islands .The Solomon Islands is a country in Melanesia, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands....
. Lever Brothers Ltd also acquired other soap companies including A&F Pears
Andrew Pears

Andrew Pears was farmer's son from Cornwall, born in 1766, who invented the transparent soap. He moved to London in 1789 from his home in Mevagissey, Cornwall, where he had trained as a barber....
, Gossage's
William Gossage

William Gossage was a Chemical substance manufacturer who established a soap making business in Widnes, Lancashire, England....
 of Widnes
Widnes

Widnes is an industrial town within the Halton , in Cheshire, England, with an urban area population of 57,663 in 2004. It is located on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form the River Mersey#Runcorn Gap....
, Crosfield's of Warrington, Hazlehurst & Sons
Hazlehurst & Sons

Hazlehurst & Sons was a company making soap and alkali in Runcorn, Cheshire, England in the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th century....
 of Runcorn
Runcorn

Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port within the Halton in the ceremonial counties of England of Cheshire, England. In mid-2004 its population was estimated to be 61,252....
 and Hudson's of Liverpool
Liverpool

Liverpool [] is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a History of borough status in England and Wales in 1207 and was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1880....
.

The company grew and operated until 1930, when it merged with a Dutch company, Margarine Unie
Margarine Unie

The Netherlands company Margarine Unie grew in the 1920s through mergers of several margarine companies, among which Centra and Georg Schicht and above all the companies of Antonius Johannes Jurgens and Samuel van den Bergh....
, to form Unilever
Unilever

Unilever is a multi-national corporation, formed of United Kingdom-Netherlands parentage that owns many of the world's consumer product brand names in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....
, the first modern multinational company. 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.

Among its presidents was Charles Luckman
Charles Luckman

Charles Luckman was a businessman and an United States architect, famous as the "Boy Wonder of American Business" when he was named president of the Pepsodent toothpaste company in 1939 at the age of thirty....
 in the 1950s who would champion the construction of the Lever House
Lever House

Lever House, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and located at 390 Park Avenue in New York City, is the quintessential and seminal glass box International style skyscraper....
 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
Madison Square Garden

Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, has been the name of four arenas in New York City....
, the Theme Building
Theme Building

The Theme Building is a landmark structure at Los Angeles International Airport within the Westchester, Los Angeles, California neighborhood of the City of Los Angeles....
 and master plan for Los Angeles International Airport
Los Angeles International Airport

Los Angeles International Airport is the primary airport serving Los Angeles, California, California, the United States metropolitan area of the United States....
, Aon Center
Aon Center

The Aon Center is the name of two buildings.* Aon Center * Aon Center ...
 and initial buildings of the Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy Space Center

The John F. Kennedy Space Center is the NASA space vehicle launch facility and Launch Control Center on Merritt Island, Florida, Brevard County, Florida, United States....
 and Johnson Space Center.

See also

  • Lever Brothers Factory
    Lever Brothers Factory, Balmain

    The Lever Brothers Factory in the Sydney, Australia suburb of Balmain, New South Wales was a soap factory which operated from 1895 until 1988. It employed many people from the local area and its large industrial buildings were a prominent feature of the landscape....
     originally located in Balmain, New South Wales
    Balmain, New South Wales

    Balmain is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the Local Government Areas in Australia of the Municipality of Leichhardt....
    , Australia
  • Port Sunlight
    Port Sunlight

    Port Sunlight is a model village on the Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside, England. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, and between 1894 and 1974 formed part of Bebington urban district within the county of Cheshire....