Who Founded Unilever?

William Hesketh Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) co-founded Lever Brothers with his brother James in 1885 and built it around Sunlight Soap, one of the first branded, individually wrapped soaps sold at mass scale. He built the Port Sunlight factory and model village near Liverpool for his workers. Lever Brothers grew into a major international soap business and, after his death in 1925, merged with the Dutch Margarine Unie in 1929 to form Unilever.

William Hesketh Lever was born in 1851.

Lever was born on September 19, 1851 and died on May 7, 1925. He joined his father's wholesale grocery business in Bolton at fifteen. He was also a philanthropist and politician and became 1st Viscount Leverhulme.

Samuel van den Bergh led Van den Bergh, a Dutch margarine maker that became one of Jurgens' main rivals. The two families combined their businesses into Margarine Unie in 1927, and Margarine Unie merged with Lever Brothers in 1929 to create Unilever. Because both soap and margarine depend on oils and fats, the merger gave the combined group shared purchasing of raw materials.

Samuel van den Bergh was born in 1864 in Oss.

Van den Bergh was born on April 6, 1864 in Geffen and died on February 4, 1941 in Nice. He joined his father's margarine company in 1888 and became its general director in 1909.

Anton Jurgens' family firm was among the first to manufacture margarine commercially in the Netherlands after the product was invented in France. Jurgens competed for decades with the Van den Bergh family before the two merged into Margarine Unie in 1927. Margarine Unie then merged with Lever Brothers in 1929, creating Unilever.

Anton Jurgens was born in 1867.

Antonius Johannes Jurgens was born on February 8, 1867 in Oss and died on March 12, 1945. His grandfather Antoon Jurgens founded a butter company in 1867 and, in 1871, the first margarine factory in the world.