A CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY

Southland Times, Issue 19546, 9 May 1925, Page 7

A CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY

LORD LEVERHULME’S DEATH. A GREAT MANUFACTURER. A ROMANTIC CAREER. (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and. N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, May 8. The cause of the death of Lord Leverhulme was inflammation of the lungs.. A REMARKABLE CAREER. A SELF-MADE MAN. William Hesktfth Lever was born at Bolton in 1851. He was educated there, and when only sixteen joined his father in a grocery business. His soap-making business, started in 1886, increased enormously; its wares became known all over the world,' and in 1921 it controlled various subsidiaries, had big interests in Africa and elsewhere abroad, and as Lever Bros, was a limited company with an issued capital of £46,769,000 Its headquarters were at Wigan and Warrington until a new town, Port Sunlight, was built for its activities. Outside his business Lord Leverhulme’ had interests in politics and the theatre, was an advocate of a six-hour working day, and of decimal coinage. He was also a leading Non-conformist. He was M.P. for the Wirral division of Cheshire,. 1906-10. In 1911 he was made a baronet, and 1917 a peer, combining the name Lever with Huhne, his wife’s maiden name. Lord Leverhulme purchased the island of Lewis in 1918 in order to develop ite industries. A splendid art gallery in memory of his wife was opened at Port Sunlight in December, 1923, and he presented Stafford House to the nation in 1913. He visited New Zealand last year, and on his return Home made a gift of pictures to the Sarjent Art Gallery, Wanganui. PROTEST AGAINST TITLE. When Lord Leverhulme assumed the title “of the Western Isles” the Gaelic Society of Inverness protested to Mr Bonar Law (who was Prime Minister at the time). Mr Bonar Laws’s secretary, in acknowledgiftg the resolution, said that the Prime Minister, in consequence of other letters which he had received containing representations similar to those made by the Gaelic Society, caused inquiry to be made, and found that the King had approved a sub - mission, based on the recommendation of the College of Arms, under which Lord Leverhulme was created “Viscount Leverhulme of the Western Isles in the Counties of Inverness and Ross and Cromarty,” and letters patent were issued accordingly. In these circumstances Mr Bonar Law regretted that it was too late to take any action in regard to the matter, but he pointed out that Lord Leverhulme’s title, as approved, was “Viscount Leverhulme,” and mat the addition of the words “of the Western Isles in the Counties of Inverness and Ross and Cromarty” was a descriptive designation which did not form part of the title itself. It was hoped by the Highland societies that Sir James Balfour Paul, Lyon King of Arms in Scotland, would take cognisance of the matter. He stated that the title “Lord of the Isles” belonged to the Prince of Wales, and that it was unfortunate that the style of dignity to be conferred on Lord Leverhulme was not submitted to the Scottish Court of Heraldry. LORD BIRKENHEAD’S SKETCH.

“About fifty-five years ago a fresh-faced stocky Lancashire boy stood behind the counter of a small grocer’s shop in Bolton,” wrote Lord Birkenhead, in the Sunday Times last year. “There was nothing about him to attract special notice except his eyes. These were of a brilliant, gleaming, arresting blue. No one could be quite ordinary who had such eyes. No artist could have caught all their various fights. That boy was one day to be the Viscount Leverhulme. I had this description twenty years ago from a very old Bolton man who knew William Lever and his father well. The boy is now a merchant prince, and one of the richest and most adventurous men in the British Empire. “Enterprise has always been the pecu - liar quality which has made England, and enterprise must, in ever-changing forms, remain the hope of the Empire. In Lord Leverhulme, long known to the commercial world as William Hesketh Lever, we make the acquaintance of a merchant prince who is true to a fundamental type. He has created a vast business out of very simple material. This fact might range him, at first sight, with many who have gone before him. But he has done the most original things. So much has he enlarged the principles of business, so much use has he made of opportunity, that we see in him one of the most unconventional beings who has ever imposed his character upon trade or his influence upon an age. In Venice he would have been a great Prince and Doge. . “And then came soap. “I pause reverently on the subject of soap, for it is undoubtedly a very great subject. I know that Lord Leverhulme has dabbled in other commodities. But, as he says, fresh from adventures in Hampstead or the Outer Hebrides—it may be amongst tiresome borough councillors or amongst recalcitrant fishermen—everything comes back to soap. There is something almost awe-inspiring in the continuous progress of those undertakings which have made the name of Lever familiar to the whole world. The triumph of soap which bears the Lever brand is a theme which might be extended to epical dimensions. I have not forgotten the absorption of Hudson, nor many a Homeric struggle over other combinations and interests. These struggles are still thrilling to think of as they emerge from the heyday of the past. There have been times when Lord Leverhulme has had to fight with his bick to the wall for his saponaceous life. ‘I have not evolved any schemes with consciousness beforehand,’ he says. ‘I have always done the day’s work not regretting yesterday and not being afraid of to-morrow.’ “But all this enterprise and all this confidence have always come back in the end to soap. The tables by which Lord Leverhulme is surrounded in his London office are crowded with samples of this fluctuating commodity, which is always being evolved afresh and anew in counless variegated forms. It is a simple material, like the musical scale, which out of seven notes to nine will bring an infinity of music. But here the musical note which strikes, or can be struck, most melodiously is that esoteric harmony which sets its aspirations toward the future. For I do not doubt that round the Leverhulme name in the course of time will grow those fine traditions which will continue to increase the importance of a family and of a home.

“And so the honors which already accrue to a name,, which in itself consecrates what is happily in England an everyday romance, will always help to maintain those ideas of stability which England still cherishes and needs.”