William Lever, the son of a wholesale grocer, was born in Bolton in 1851. He rejoined the family business when he was sixteen and five years later his father made him his partner.

In the 1880's Lever became bored with grocery and began exploring the possibility of expanding into other areas. Young Lever eventually decided on soap and after leasing a chemical works in Warrington, he starting experimenting with different ingredients. He eventually settled on the formula of palm kernel oil, resin and tallow. Lever called it Sunlight Soap and it was an immaculate success.

The Warrington factory was not large enough to supply the demand and so Lever built a new one by the River Mersey in Cheshire. The place was named Port Sunlight after the soap it was to produce. He also built a model town to house his workers.

By 1895 Port Sunlight was producing 40,000 tons of soap a year. Other products produced at Port Sunlight included Lifebouy Carbolic Soap, Sunlight Soap Flakes and Vim. Lever gave a considerable amount of money to charity and his contribution to society was recognised by granting him the title of Viscount Leverhulme. William Lever died in 1925.

Our Sunlight vehicle features the bus and comes in the 'Corner Shop' range.

Also see the Grocery Collection

I was very interested in the article on the net regarding Sunlight Soap. My husband was the Maintenance Engineer for the Sunlight Soap machine at Lever Brothers in Lower Hutt Wellington NZ for several years during the middle 1960's. During that time the machine had record output, breaking it's pevious record several times. As an added bonus everyone who worked on the Sunlight machine, was given a box of Nestles Winning Post Chocolates. Unfortunately we moved to Whangarei, on the north of the north island, but Reeve said it was the best place he'd ever worked (among MANY during his working life-he's now 78) and they really looked after their staff. A few years ago when visiting family in Wellington, Reeve called into Lever Bros just to see if any of the old staff were still there. They asked him if he'd come to collect his discounted staff products! After 34 years or so! Apparently it's a perk of the job... Unfortunately Sunlight Soap is no longer made here, neither is Lifebuoy Soap. However, I understand Sunlight is still available in Australia, so I'll see if our son can bring some over when he comes at Christmas.
Sunlight is wonderful for cleaning paint brushes, for washing hair and of course for household cleaning jobs, and my mother used to grate it into the "copper" when boiling the clothes-this was before she got a washing machine around 1945. Nola Cooze

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