Daniella Bool
Archivist and Records Manager
Average read time: 2 minutes
To celebrate this year's Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, I thought it might be nice to understand William Lever's views of women in the workplace.
William Lever had quite a progressive perspective about women – especially for a man of his era. As early as 1903 he supportively attended a meeting of the Birkenhead and Wirral Women's Suffrage Society. Progress staff magazine reported that,
“the meeting was presided over by Mr W. H. Lever, who congratulated the organisers of the meeting on the large attendance, and thought it indicated that the subject was one in which they in Port Sunlight took a great interest, and that they were viewing their responsibilities in life in a proper way."
"He thought there was very little doubt about it that if women exercised the vote there would be a much keener interest taken in matters of reform, and an irresistible force in the nation for good government. He questioned whether women themselves were as earnest on the subject as they ought to be, but he believed that if the women of England were determined and united, if they recognised how much it meant for their own well-being, the demand for the franchise would be irresistible”.
Despite his supportive stance, Lever's house at Rivington Pike, known as "The Bungalow “, was burnt down ten years later by Edith Rigby, a militant suffragette. Causing more than £20,000 worth of damage, in today’s money this would be upwards of £860,000.
It appears she was driven to damage his property in particular, not because of any disagreement with his views but because of his position as a recognisable, public figure.
She stated:
“I want to ask Sir William Lever whether he thinks his property on Rivington Pike is more valuable as one of his superfluous houses occasionally opened to people, or as a beacon lighted to King and Country to see here are some intolerable grievances for women”.
More than ten years later, Lever's son, the second Lord Leverhulme wrote,
"In all that campaign of mischievous folly there was no act more illogical than the destruction of ‘The Bungalow’, for Lever had been a supporter of the principle of Woman’s Suffrage and had spoken in favour of it on public platforms".
It was abundantly clear Lever was keen for women to become a part of the democratic process, however in the early stages of the business, the majority of the workforce was male.
The First World War elicited a genuine introduction of women into Lever Brothers. Speaking to an audience of girls at the Bolton School in 1916, Lever commented on this, saying,
“This War has discovered Woman. Women are in evidence everywhere. Engaged in hundreds of useful and honourable occupations and discharging their duties excellently. It was never imagined prior to the War what Women could accomplish in other work than was then open to them."
"We are proud of the work undertaken by all classes of women in England to-day in this Great War. I often wonder what those grand dames, who danced in Brussels on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, would have said could they have seen their great grand-daughters and great-great grand-daughters doing the work the women of England are engaged in to-day. They would have been shocked at the idea of women working side by side with men without affectation - easily and naturally - in munition factories and making shot and shell to kill the enemies of their country. It is a grand work and it is also grand to be engaged in taking care of the sick and wounded, a work which is being well discharged by delicate girls, and by matrons, and by those who are no longer young”.
Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the number of women working for Unilever swelled and their roles diversified. A certain percentage of women, especially in the working classes have always worked, but the proportion of middle-class women joining the workforce increased dramatically.
Women employed by Unilever undertook a varying range of jobs, from secretarial or administrative work, to research, factory work, market research, management and beyond.