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Often compared to Henry Ford, William Lever was Britain's most famed mass-production, short hours and high pay-man. He sold senior securities to the public, but not a share of the ordinary (common) stock left his vault until four years after his death when Margarine Union, the Dutch margarine trust, was merged with Lever Brothers as Unilever, Ltd. When he was raised to the Peerage, he simply added his wife's maiden name to his own, becoming Lord Leverhulme. When a grateful Throne raised the energetic little soapman to a viscountcy he became Leverhulme, 1st Viscount of the Western Isles, which included two of the Hebrides which he had bought with the idea of improving the natives' lot.
Methodical, the Soap Lord kept daily records of the cigars he smoked, the wine he drank, the exercise he took. When he rode on one of his numerous estates, he always walked his horse to precisely the same point, then trotted to another designated point and so on. Once in a great while he cantered.
His son, Leverhulme, 2nd Viscount of the Western Isles, is now governor of Lever Brothers Ltd. And the Honorable Philip William Bryce Lever, 19, will inherit the kingdom of soap.
*Ivory occurred to Soapman Procter in church while listening to Psalm 45:8: "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad."