William Hesketh Lever: The Model Village
Industrialist William Lever built the idyllic model village of Port Sunlight for his soap factory workers, setting a new standard for living conditions.
In the late 19th century, factory workers generally lived in squalid, overcrowded terraced housing located immediately adjacent to heavily polluting industrial mills.
William Hesketh Lever (founder of Lever Brothers, now Unilever) believed his workforce deserved better. When he built a new soap factory on the Wirral, he also constructed 'Port Sunlight'—a beautiful, carefully planned model village for his employees. The village featured spacious houses with gardens, a school, a cottage hospital, and massive allotments. While Lever's control over his workers' lives was somewhat paternalistic and strict, his approach to property development proved that high-quality housing dramatically increased worker productivity and loyalty.