Founder Profile
William Hesketh Lever
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is William Hesketh Lever?
William Hesketh Lever is a founder of Unilever PLC, which was founded in 1929 with Samuel van den Bergh and Anton Jurgens.
- Company founded
- Unilever PLC
- Founded
- 1929
- Co-founders
- Samuel van den Bergh and Anton Jurgens
Background
Lever started in his family's wholesale grocery business in Bolton, England, before moving into soap manufacturing in the 1880s.
Founding Story
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.