The Lever Brothers Factory was a

soap Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...

factory in the suburb of Balmain in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, 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. Most of the site was demolished in 1996 to make way for an apartment complex, and only three of the original buildings remain.

Localization

The factory was on a site near Booth Street and Punch Park at the western end of Balmain, adjacent to White Bay.

History

The

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

company,

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 p ...

, was founded in 1885 by

William Hesketh Lever William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme , (, ; 19 September 1851 – 7 May 1925) was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician. Having been educated at a small private school until the age of nine, then at church schools ...

, and Lever Brothers Ltd was incorporated in Australia on 21 June 1894. ''Papers relating to Levers Pacific Plantations Limited and related companies, 1894–1928,''

Pacific Manuscripts Bureau The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau is a non-profit organisation sponsored by an international consortium of libraries specialising in Pacific research. The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau was formed in 1968 to copy archives, manuscripts and rare printed mat ...

(PAMBU),

Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies The Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs is a constituent of the College of Asia and the Pacific, but was formerly part of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU, which was founded in 1946 as part of the Institute of Advanced ...

(RSPAS),

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

(ANU), Canberra. Soon after this, in 1897, Lever Brothers established a plant at Balmain to extract oil from

copra Copra (from ) is the dried, white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted. Traditionally, the coconuts are sun-dried, especially for export, before the oil, also known as copra oil, is pressed out. The oil extracted from copr ...

which was shipped back to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

.Solling, M; Reynolds, P; ''Leichhardt: On the margins of the city'', Allen & Unwin, 1997, pp 125–6, . In 1900, the Balmain plant began to manufacture Sunlight soap and glycerine, and other products followed. Early in 1914, William Lever visited

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

as part of a worldwide tour of his company's interests. During the visit, he met with the owners of J.Kitchen & Sons, who were established local soap manufacturers, and offered to amalgamate the two firms. After consideration, it was agreed that Lever Bros would purchase three-quarters of the shares in J.Kitchen & Sons, in return for cumulative preferred

ordinary shares Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Comm ...

in Levers. Levers later bought all the remaining shares and, by about 1923–24, fully owned both companies. Shortly after, the company became known as Lever & Kitchen.Kitchen, C; ''John Kitchen, Chemical Industrial Pioneer, A Soap Story''; Victorian Historical Journal; Vol 64, No. 1; April 1993. ember.melbpc.org.au/~tonkit/kitchen/docs/SoapStory.pdf/ref> In 1989, the Home and Personal Care businesses of Lever & Kitchen merged with the Australian firm,

Rexona Rexona is an Australian deodorant and antiperspirant brand, owned by British conglomerate Unilever. While marketed under the Rexona name in most countries, it is known as Rexena ( ja, レセナ; ko, 레세나) in Japan and South Korea, S ...

, to form L&K: Rexona. In 1993, the company changed its name to Lever Rexona and, in 2000, merged with Unilever Foods to form what is now Unilever Australasia.Unilever Australasia Company Website, ''Australasia's history'', At its prime in 1958, the Balmain factory employed as many as 1,250 workers. The complex contained a

glycerine Glycerol (), also called glycerine in British English and glycerin in American English, is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, viscous liquid that is sweet-tasting and non-toxic. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known ...

refinery, toilet soap plant, and an oil refining and hardening works, as well as many storage tanks, extensive wharves, and a small fleet of lighters and workboats. The Balmain plant was wound down in the 1970s, having lost its waterfront and glycerine plant to the container wharf development at White Bay. Production eventually ceased in 1988. Together with the adjoining

Ampol Ampol Limited is an Australian petroleum company headquartered in Sydney, New South Wales. Ampol is the largest transport energy distributor and retailer in Australia, with more than 1,900 Ampol-branded stations across the country . It also ope ...

site, the area was sold in 1996 for the development of the Watervale, Dockside and Somerset Mews apartment complexes. Like many of the other Balmain industries, such as the former

Balmain Power Station The Balmain Power Station was located at Iron Cove, from Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. The station no longer exists and residential properties now occupy the site. This plant is often confused with the White Bay Power Station, the re ...

, the Colgate-Palmolive Factory, and the many shipyards, boilermakers and docks scattered about the Balmain foreshores, the Lever Brothers Factory became a victim of the ever-increasing property values in the area.

Other information

* Balmain master soapmaker, William Wainwright, was mayor of Balmain in 1922 and one of a number of

Freemasons Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

at Lever Brothers. * As well as soap and

, the factory also produced

Lifebuoy A lifebuoy is a life-saving buoy designed to be thrown to a person in water, to provide buoyancy and prevent drowning. Some modern lifebuoys are fitted with one or more seawater-activated lights, to aid rescue at night. Other names Other nam ...

antiseptic soap,

Monkey Brand Monkey Brand soap was introduced in the 1880s in cake/bar form in the United States and United Kingdom as a household scouring and polishing soap. History Initially, Benjamin Brooke & Co Ltd, a firm owned by Sidney and Henry Gross, had produced ...

soap, Lux flakes and toilet soap,

Pears soap Pears transparent soap is a British brand of soap first produced and sold in 1807 by Andrew Pears, at a factory just off Oxford Street in London. It was the world's first mass-market translucent soap. Under the stewardship of advertising pionee ...

Rinso Rinso is a brand name of laundry soap and detergent marketed by Unilever. The brand was created by Robert Spear Hudson and originally branded Hudson's Soap, which was sold to Lever Brothers of Port Sunlight, England, in 1908. It was introduced ...

Persil Persil is a German brand of laundry detergent manufactured and marketed by Henkel around the world except in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Latin America (except Mexico), China, Australia and New Zealand, where it is manufactured and mar ...

, Solvol, Omo, Handy Andy, and Continental packet soups. * William Lever is credited as being the first soap manufacturer to imprint a brand name on a bar of soap ("Sunlight") and wrap it before sale. * In 1930, Australian politician

William Wentworth William Charles Wentworth (August 179020 March 1872) was an Australian pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures of early colonial New South Wales. Throug ...

worked briefly at the site as a factory-hand.Professor D J Anderson, ''Presentation of the degree of Doctor of the University to William Charles Wentworth IV'', The University of Sydney, 15 March 2006

/ref>

References

External links

*
NSW Planning - Local Walks
* {{Unilever Buildings and structures in Sydney Buildings and structures demolished in 1996 Unilever Balmain, New South Wales