CASE STUDY Lord Leverhulme’s Port Sunlight
William Hesketh Lever (1851–1925) was the son of a grocer, James Lever, and Eliza Hesketh. William began his working life cutting, weighing and wrapping soap for his father. He worked hard, becoming a partner in his father’s firm in 1872. William married his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Hulme, two years later.
In 1884 William formed Lever Brothers with his brother James. William rented a small factory in Warrington to make his favourite soap recipe, the Sunlight Self-Washer. It was made from vegetable oil rather than tallow. Each bar was sold wrapped in a carton (previously, the housewife bought unwrapped soap in long bars from the grocer).
Lever Brothers outgrew its Warrington factory location as business boomed, so Lever bought a 56-acre site at Bromborough Pool, by the River Mersey, with good transport links. The new works, later the world’s largest soap factory, was modern and hygienic.
Lever built a model village, Port Sunlight, for his workers. More than 30 different architects, including Edwin Lutyens, designed the workers’ homes. Each house had an outside WC, garden and allotment. Rents ranged from 5s to 6s 3d weekly (about a quarter of the weekly wage). The village had a school, church, cottage hospital and library, and workers bought their provisions from a co- operative store.
William accumulated great personal wealth, and became Baron Leverhulme in 1917. After his death Lever Brothers merged with a margarine company to form Unilever. The Leverhulme Trust, founded in his will, provides grants and scholarships for research and education.