HAIR OIL FORTUNE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 192, 16 August 1939, Page 7

HAIR OIL FORTUNE.

£600,000 ROMANCE.

HOW £2 GREW IN 13 YEARS.

CHEMIST TELLS HIS STORY.

(Special.—By Air Mall.)

LONDON, July 22.

The man who started a company 13 years ago on a capital of £2 and sold it recently for £600,000, this week told the story of his rise to fortune. He is 71-year-old Mr. Wilfred Hill. Forty years ago he ran a little chemist's shop in Colehill, then a village outside Birmingham. Now he lives in a mansion on Hanger Hill, in West London.

"In 1869," he mused, "I started a little concern, called it the County Chemical Company. I made carbide and lubricating oil for bicycles. I made, too, golf balls for a shilling each, and the earliest vacuum cleaners." But his first real inspiration came in 1904 when he started to make Pomade Hongroise for waxing moustaches. "Itl wae a flourishing little business for ai year or two," said Mr. Hill, "but then; moustaches went out of fashion. They! went out so completely that my little | side-line went into debt to the extent j of £9000." I

I One day he noticed that the men round Birmingham plastered down their hair with water or gum, both ineffective. So, in 1926, he evolved a "perfumed, emulsified oil."

"I sold the local barbers 13 bottles to the dozen, and presented every one with a quart for use in his shop if he bought three dozen," said Mr. Hill. "I did not approach chemists at all. They! came to me, first with orders for a quarter-dozen. Now they buy 12 tons at a time. This new business promised so well that I founded the County Perfumery Company to run it. with a nominal capital of £100. Only £2 of that capital was ever issued to myself and my son. Not another penny of fresh capital has gone into the business.

"My own business still took up much of iny time so I looked round for a manager. I found him —in a dole queue. He was Neil Fabricus. He came to me for £2 a week. ' He is now earning £3000 a year. He will get £5000 from the new company, of which he will be managing-director."