The Lever Brothers Factory was a

soap Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

factory in the suburb of Balmain in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, 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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

company,

Lever Brothers Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and su ...

, was founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever, 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 (RSPAS),

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

(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 ...

which was shipped back to

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

.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 Sunlight is a brand of laundry soap, laundry detergent and dishwashing detergent manufactured and marketed around the world by Unilever, except in the United States and Canada, where it has been owned by Sun Products (now Henkel Corporati ...

and glycerine, and other products followed. Early in 1914, William Lever visited

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

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 Com ...

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 the British- Dutch company Unilever. While marketed under the Rexona name in most countries, it is known as Rexena (; ) in Japan and South Korea, Sure in the United Kingd ...

, 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 () is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, sweet-tasting, viscous liquid. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known as glycerides. It is also widely used as a sweetener in the food industry and as a humectant in ...

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 1,800 Ampol-branded service stations across the country . Amp ...

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 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 (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

at Lever Brothers. * As well as soap and

, the factory also produced

Lifebuoy A lifebuoy or life ring, among many other names (see § Other names), 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-activat ...

antiseptic soap, Monkey Brand soap, Lux flakes and toilet soap,

Pears soap Pears Glycerin 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 pioneer T ...

, Rinso,

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 an ...

, 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 statesman, pastoralist, explorer, newspaper editor, lawyer, politician and author, who became one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in colonial New South Wales. He ...

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