Levers Pacific Plantations Ltd. was a British company, incorporated by

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

in London in 1902, as a subsidiary of

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 ...

, which wanted to get more control over raw materials for its soap, such as

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 ...

, mainly for the Lever Brothers Factory 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 ...

. The first general manager was G. Foulton, who was based in Sydney. In 1903, the

British government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

granted the company access to copra and phosphate reserves in the Pacific. In 1903, Levers Pacific Plantations Limited purchased 50,000 acres of coconut plantations from Lars Nielsen in the

British Solomon Islands The British Solomon Islands Protectorate was first established in June 1893, when Captain Herbert Gibson of declared the southern Solomon Islands a British protectorate.''Commonwealth and Colonial Law'' by Kenneth Roberts-Wray, London, S ...

for £6,500, and in 1906 the company purchased the coconut plantation concessions in the Solomon Islands from the Pacific Islands Company Ltd for £5,000. By 1905 the company had acquired approximately 80,000 acres in the Solomon Islands which were distributed over 14 islands: 51,000 acres from Lars Nielsen and other plantation owners, and 28,870 acres purchased from islanders. By 1905, Levers Pacific plantations were shipping 13,000 tons of copra yearly to the Lever Brothers Ltd factory in Sydney for processing into the raw material for soap manufacture and for the supply of butter fat to customers. By 1911, the company had purchased or leased a total of 218,820 acres in the western and central Solomons, although the company did not develop and plant coconut palms on all the land they acquired. The company came into conflict with

Charles Morris Woodford Charles Morris Woodford (30 October 1852 – 4 October 1927) was a British naturalist and government minister active in the Solomon Islands. He became the first Resident Commissioner of the Solomon Islands Protectorate, serving from 1896 (thr ...

, the Resident Commissioner in the Solomon Islands, over his management of land alienation from the Solomon Islanders to plantation owners. The complaints included Woodford withdrawing ‘waste lands’ from transfer to plantation owners when the original Solomon Islander owners were identified, and his insisting on strict conformity with the improvement clauses on leases. The Solomons (Land) Regulation of 1914 (King's Regulation no. 3 of 1914), replace earlier regulations, and ended the alienation of land from Solomon Islander owners and a leasehold system was instituted for plantation land.

References

British companies established in 1902 Defunct companies based in London {{Solomon Islands-stub