William Procter

William Procter worked in trade and in tallow processing before Procter & Gamble. He ran his own candle business in Ohio in the early 19th century, which gave him practical experience of making a commodity product at scale.

William Procter was an English-born candlemaker who settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, and built a candle-making business there. In 1837, on the advice of his father-in-law, he went into partnership with his brother-in-law James Gamble to form Procter & Gamble. The company developed large-scale manufacturing and won contracts to supply the Union Army during the Civil War, which helped establish it as a national consumer goods business.

William Procter was born in 1801 in Herefordshire.