William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme
William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (19 September 1851 – 7 May 1925) was an English industrialist, philanthropist, and politician.
Lever started work at his father's grocery business in Bolton but as a businessman, he is noted for founding the soap and cleaning product firm, Lever Brothers, with his younger brother James in 1885. He began manufacturing Sunlight Soap and built a business empire with many well-known brands, such as Lux and Lifebuoy. In politics, Lever sat as a Liberal MP for Wirral and then as a Peer (as Lord Leverhulme). He was an advocate for expansion of the British Empire, particularly in Africa and Asia, which supplied palm oil, a key ingredient in Lever's product line.
Read more about William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme: Biography, Business, Politics, Legacy, Quotes
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“You should never assume contempt for that which it is not very manifest that you have it in your power to possess, nor does a wit ever make a more contemptible figure than when, in attempting satire, he shows that he does not understand that which he would make the subject of his ridicule.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)