Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Lever Brothers, one of the first companies to manufacture soap from vegetable oils, was founded by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James Darcy Lever in England, in 1885. Lever gave the soap the brand name of ‘Sunlight’ and sold it wrapped in distinctive packs. In 1889 Lever Brothers opened an office in Sydney and products manufactured in England were imported into Australia and sold, mainly through agents. In return, copra from the Pacific islands and Australian tallow, were shipped, as raw materials, to the company’s works at Port Sunlight. In 1897 an oil and copra plant was established at Balmain, Sydney, and, in 1900, the Balmain plant began to manufacture Sunlight soap and glycerine. Other products followed. Lever Brothers Ltd (Australia) had been incorporated in New South Wales as an Australian enterprise, 29 December 1899, and the soap works and copra mill at Balmain were owned by the new company. Lever’s Australian business developed into a stable soap, detergent and edible oil manufacturing enterprise, built up by mergers with dominant rivals. The first branch office of Lever Bothers Ltd (Australia) was opened in Melbourne in 1911 and by 1924 branch offices had replaced agents’ offices in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Lever Brothers (Australia) Ltd began an association with J Kitchen and Sons Pty Ltd of Melbourne and WH Burford and Sons Ltd of Adelaide, in 1914 and in 1924 all three merged to form Australian Producers Co-Partnership Ltd (renamed Associated Enterprises Pty Ltd in 1932 and Lever Associated Enterprises Pty Ltd in 1944). The business activities of each firm were coordinated by a General (Central) Management Board, comprising representatives of Lever Brothers in Balmain, the Kitchen interests and Levers Pacific Plantations. After the amalgamation of Lever Brothers and Unilever was complete, in 1937, Lever Bothers Ltd (Australia) became Lever Bothers Pty Ltd (Australia). In 1956 Unilever (Australia) Pty Ltd (UAPL) took over Lever Associated Enterprises Pty Ltd as the holding company for all Unilever’s Australian interests, including Lever Bothers Pty Ltd. Then, in 1962, following a further period of rationalisation, diversification and integration, Unilever amalgamated its two major Australian soap marketing companies, J Kitchen & Sons Pty Ltd of Melbourne and Lever Brothers Pty Ltd of Sydney to form Lever & Kitchen Pty Ltd.
Places
Sydney, New South Wales
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
oil and fat manufacturing; soap and detergent manufacturing
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
Leverhulme, WH (William Hesketh) Viscount (1851-1925); Lever, Wiliam Hesketh (1851-1925); Lever, James Darcy (1854-1910)
General context
Relationships area
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Control area
Authority record identifier
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Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Level of detail
Dates of creation, revision and deletion
Prepared by Margaret Avard, August 2012
Language(s)
Script(s)
Sources
Unilever Australasia Company Website, 'Australasia's history', accessed July 2012; Encylopaedia of Australian Science (http://www.eoas.info/biogs/A000327b.htm), accessed Jul 2012