IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0096 AL427
Held at: Senate House Library, University of London
Title: Lever, William Hesketh (Lord Leverhulme): letters
Date(s): 1918-1919
Level of description: Collection
Extent: 2 items (2 leaves)
Name of creator(s): Lever | William Hesketh | 1851-1925 | 1st Viscount Leverhulme | industrialist x Leverhulme | 1st Viscount
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
William Hesketh Lever was born and educated in Bolton, Lancashire. He started working in the family grocery business as a young man and his talent for marketing increased the success of the firm dramatically. The Sunlight and Lux brands are soap are among the products associated with him, as well as the Port Sunlight complex of factories and workers' accommodation that he built in Cheshire. Some of his other ventures, including attepts to develop the fishing industry in the Outer Hebrides and the palm oil industry in the Belgian Congo, were less successful. Lever served briefly as Liberal MP for the Wirral, Cheshire, between 1906 and 1909. He was created a baronet in 1911 and became Baron Leverhulme in 1917; the peerage was raised to a viscountcy in 1922.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
(1) Letter from William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, of The Hill, Hampstead Heath, North End, London to A B Cooper, 34b Earlsfield Road, Wandsworth Common, London, 23 Apr 1918. In reply to a letter of 19 Apr. 'In my opinion the greatest discovery of the twentieth century has been that making war on peaceful neighbours does not pay ... We are greatly indebted to Mr. Norman Angell for being the first to call attention to this great fact ...'. (2) Letter from William Hesketh Lever, Lord Leverhulme, of Port Sunlight, Cheshire to C D Melville, Meole Hall, Shrewsbury, 10 Jul 1919. Declining a request to study fish curing and canning in Stornaway [Isle of Lewis], as the developments are proceeding slowly, and the proposed works far from completion. Both letters signed by Lord Leverhulme.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
See hard copy catalogue
Conditions governing access:
Access to this collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the supervised environment and restrictions of the Library's Palaeography Room. Access to individual items in Senate House Library archives collections may be restricted under the Data Protection Act or the Freedom of Information Act. Please contact the University Archivist for details. 24 hours notice is required for research visits.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copies may be made, subject to the condition of the original. Copying must be undertaken by the Palaeography Room staff, who will need a minimum of 24 hours to process requests.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
Typescript catalogue available in the Library's Palaeography Room.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
See archivist
Immediate source of acquisition:
Purchased from E Hall,1966.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Presumably, Miss Treadwell retained the original letters after relinquishing these copies; the current whereabouts of the original letters is unknown.
Related material:
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Compiled by Anya Turner.
Date(s) of descriptions: Aug 2008