LEVERHULME, WILLIAM HESKETH LEVER, 1ST VISCOUNT (1851-1925), British man of business born at Bolton, Lanes, on Sept. 19, 1851, was the son of James Lever, a grocer. His education, received at the Bolton Church Institute, was cut short in 1867 when he went into his father's wholesale warehouse as an apprentice. In 1877, having foreseen that important econ omies in transport of goods could be effected by opening a branch of the business in Wigan, he established a centre there, which ultimately became more profitable than the Bolton headquarters. By 1884 this had ceased to interest him ; the fact that he chose soap for his activities was an accident of his early upbringing; salesmanship in itself was what interested him. He leased a small and unsuccessful soapworks at Warrington, and turned it into a nation-wide business. His success was largely due to wide spread advertising and a flair for the requirements of the con sumer, whose point of view he never forgot. He found a site for the necessary expansion of the business near Bebington, Cheshire, where on Bromborough Pool Mrs. Lever on March 3, 1888, cut the first sod for the f oundations of Port Sunlight, the now famed model industrial village, a conspicuous example of successful town planning.
The firm's expansion overseas has become world-wide by his system of associated companies, which in 1925 numbered 25o Through Bromborough Pool and the Mersey, Lord Leverhulme had from Port Sunlight secured access by water to London and to British ports generally for home trade, and to the waterways of the world for his exports, as well as to the sources of the raw materials for soap manufacture. Mr. Lever and his brother, before they moved to Port Sunlight, had determined that their employees should share in their prosperity. The prosperity shar ing pledge was primarily redeemed in the creation of Port Sun light village with its abundant amenities, in the spaciousness of the factory area and in the arrangements now comprehended in the term "factory workers' welfare." Those who lived in the village further enjoyed "prosperity-sharing rents," based on the cost of maintenance repairs and renewals, the interest on the capital expended being a charge on the company's profits. The same principle was applied to works welfare expenses, beginning with a pensions scheme called the Employes' Benefit Fund, long service awards, cottage hospital, holiday club, but including in later days the co-partnership scheme and the many benefits flow ing from it, e.g., free insurance policies, unemployment and sick
ness benefits, staff college training and scholarships.
In 1906 an attack was directed by a powerful Press organiza tion against an arrangement made by Mr. Lever with some other soap makers, which was mistakenly denounced as a soap trust. Legal action was taken, and the imputations withdrawn. In 1906 he became Liberal M.P. for Wirral.
In 1909 Lever launched his scheme of co-partnership with employees. This scheme was typical of the man, and perhaps hardly a practicable model for general use. The complete autocrat, his generosity stopped short of any share in management. The scheme amounted to an annual gift out of his own pocket as sole ordinary shareholder. In 1911 he was made a baronet; in 1913 Lady Lever died ; she is commemorated by the Lady Lever Memorial art gallery.
In 1918 Lord Leverhulme advocated the running of machinery in factories in double shifts of six hours in order to absorb the unemployed and to increase production at a lower cost. (See his book The Six-Hour Day and Other Industrial Questions.) He now bought from Col. Duncan Matheson the Island of Lewis, ac quiring later North and South Harris also. He spent large sums in a sincere effort to extend and develop the fishing industry and to help the islanders in other ways, but lack of support led to the abandonment of his schemes as far as Lewis was con cerned ; and he gave the town of Stornoway, including Lewis Castle and its grounds, to the people of Stornoway. He con tinued his developments in Harris, where more local appreciation was shown, until his death. One of Leverhulme's personal enter prises for the economic development of his Hebridean properties was the opening or acquisition in 1919 of numerous retail fish shops, to serve as an outlet for the fishing industry of Lewis and Harris.