Category Archives: Soap

Soap opera: R S Hudson

Robert Spear Hudson introduced the first commercial soap powder in the world in 1837. The business he established later introduced the Omo and Rinso detergent products.

Establishment
Robert Spear Hudson (1812 – 1884) was born in West Bromwich in the West Midlands of England. His father was the pastor of the local Congregationalist church.

Robert Spear Hudson (1812 – 1884)

Hudson was apprenticed to an apothecary, and opened a chemist’s shop on West Bromwich High Street from around 1830.

Hudson was possessed by a restless energy, and had a firm commitment to hard work. Through trial and experimentation he introduced Hudson’s Dry Soap, the first commercial soap powder, from 1837. The basic formula for the product is believed to have consisted of dried soap mixed with sodium carbonate.

Hudson also invented a new baking powder, the formula for which he gifted to George Borwick (1807 – 1889), his brother in law.

Borwick acted as the London agent for Hudson’s Dry Soap from 1844, and from that year the product was used by the Royal Household of Queen Victoria.

Hudson employed a staff of ten girls in 1854. This had increased to two men, four boys and 19 girls by 1861.

Demand became such that Hudson had to subcontract soap production to William Hunt of Wednesbury from 1864.

R S Hudson enters into mass production
Hudson’s Dry Soap entered into mass production from 1870. From this time the supply of stock soap was contracted to William Gossage & Sons of Merseyside.

Hudson succeeded due to his thorough nature, and his ready appreciation of the importance of advertising.

A much larger second factory was established at Bank Hall, Liverpool, in 1875. The head office was transferred to Bank Hall. The site was convenient for the imported raw material of vegetable oil, and also had excellent railway, canal and dock links.

Robert Spear Hudson died in 1884. His personal estate was valued at over £295,000. He had been a generous benefactor and a keen Congregationalist throughout his life. He was succeeded as head of the business by his son, Robert William Hudson (1856 – 1938).

120 million half-pound packets of soap powder were sold every year by 1888. The business spent £20,000 a year on advertising.

1,000 people were employed by 1908.

Acquisition by Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers, a large soap manufacturer, acquired R S Hudson in 1908. The price paid was undisclosed, but The Times described the figure as “a staggering amount”. R S Hudson was converted into a limited liability company with a capital of £500,000.

R S Hudson was continued with the same management. However new product lines were introduced; Omo for bleaching clothes in 1908, and Rinso washing detergent in 1910.


Supply of stock soap for the dry powder was immediately switched from William Gossage & Sons to Lever Brothers, in a major blow for the rival business.

The two Hudson factories were modernised in 1927. Electricity replaced steam power, and automated product-packing was introduced.

Lever Brothers gradually transferred production to their large factory at Port Sunlight. The R S Hudson factories in Liverpool and West Bromwich were closed in 1935.

Robert William Hudson died in 1938 with a personal estate in England valued at £234,146.

R S Hudson was merged with John Knight, another soap manufacturer controlled by Lever Brothers, to form Hudson & Knight in 1945.

Hudson & Knight was integrated into Unilever, the successor to Lever Brothers, in 1964.

Omo and Rinso are still sold around the world.

Bubble market: William Gossage & Sons

William Gossage & Sons was the largest soap manufacturer in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world, by 1877.

Early life and Stoke Prior
William Gossage (1799 – 1877) was born in Lincolnshire. After serving an apprenticeship to his uncle in Chesterfield, Gossage commenced trade as a chemist and druggist at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.

William Gossage (1799-1877)

Gossage was appointed chemist to the Stoke Prior Salt and Alkaki Works in Worcestershire from 1830. Gossage sank a shaft that was to prove highly successful in pumping brine. He was eventually appointed a director and managing partner of the business.

Gossage commences the manufacture of soap in Widnes
Gossage established a soda-making plant at Widnes, Merseyside, from 1850. He also produced alkali from crushed limestone. He soon gave up soda-making, and commenced the smelting of copper, which was to prove successful.

Soap prices increased during the Crimean War (1853 – 56) due to inflated tallow prices. Gossage began to manufacture a low-cost alternative soap of similar quality using sodium silicate and palm oil from 1855.

Gossage introduced blue mottled soap from 1857. Mottled soap served no superior utilitarian function, but gave the soap the pleasant aesthetic appearance of marble.

William Gossage was considered a model employer, and was highly popular with his workforce. He employed 80 men by 1861.

The two sons and T S Timmis enter the business
Alfred Howard Gossage (1831 – 1904) and Frederick Herbert Gossage (1832 – 1907), sons of William Gossage, had entered the business as partners by 1861.

Thomas Sutton Timmis (1830 – 1910) joined the business from 1865, and became a partner.

Thomas Sutton Timmis (1830 – 1910) c.1892

A H Gossage retired in 1866.

William Gossage & Sons held a contract to produce dry soap for R S Hudson from 1869.

William Gossage & Sons was the second largest soap manufacturer in Britain by 1870.

William Gossage retired from business due to ill health from 1874.

Frederick Gossage and Thomas Timmis were to drive the business forward. Gossage had the technical expertise, and Timmis possessed a keen aptitude for finance.

William Gossage & Sons was the largest soap manufacturer in the United Kingdom, and possibly the world by 1877, with an output of no less than 500 tons a week.

William Gossage & Sons employed 500 men and 40 boys by 1881.

Over 200,000 tons of mottled soap were produced between 1862 and 1887.

William Gossage & Sons held a contract to produce Sunlight soap during the early days of Lever Brothers. Frederick Gossage was said to have taught William Lever how to make soap.

Gossage and Timmis converted the business into a private limited company, William Gossage & Sons, from 1894.

William Gossage & Sons produced 1,400 tons of soap a week by 1897, and was probably the second largest soap manufacturer in the world after Lever Brothers. The business focused on the overseas trade, and had a large market in China.

Frederick Gossage died with a net personalty of £709,396 in 1907.

Thomas Timmis died in 1910 with a net personalty valued at £643,247.

Thousands of tons of blue mottled soap were produced annually by 1911. William Gossage & Sons accounted for 57 percent of all soap exported from the United Kingdom, and held 33 percent of the foreign soap trade worldwide.

Acquisition by Brunner Mond
Brunner Mond, the largest chemical manufacturer in the world, acquired William Gossage & Sons and Joseph Crosfield & Sons of Warrington, a rival soap manufacturer, in 1911. Brunner Mond was a major supplier of raw material for the soap industry, and the merger was motivated by an intent to create a strong competitor against the increasingly dominant Lever Brothers.

The Widnes site covered about fourteen acres by 1914. About 1,500 people were employed. Exports were strong throughout the British Empire, and in the Far East.

Sale to Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers acquired William Gossage & Sons and Joseph Crosfield & Sons in 1919.

William Gossage & Sons employed around 1,300 people in 1928.

The Widnes site was closed in 1932, and production was transferred to Lever Brothers-controlled plants in Bromborough and Warrington.

William Gossage & Sons was merged with Joseph Watson & Sons, a Leeds soap manufacturer that was also controlled by Lever Brothers, to form Watson & Gossage from 1937.