Price's Candles

In 1830 William Wilson and Benjamin Lancaster founded "Edward Price and Co." by purchasing the patent for the separation of coconut fats.[1] The company originally consisted of a candle factory at Vauxhall, London and a crushing mill upstream at Battersea, York Road. Palm trees from West Africa were used for their palm oil, and George Wilson used sulphuric acid to remove the brown colour. In 1840, there were 84 staff, and by 1855, 2,300. In 1847, Edward Price and Co became Price's Patent Candle Company.[2]

William's son, James Wilson, an evangelical Christian was concerned to provide all the boy employees (over 1,000) with a bible, a hymn book and an arithmetic book in their own locked drawer. James was a pioneer in workers' welfare by providing free breakfasts and suppers and free baths.[3] The novelists Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote enthusiastically about these reforms.

Limited dockside facilities at Battersea caused the factory to be moved to the Wirral. In 1854 Price bought land and until 1858, a model village was built adjoining the factory at Bromborough Pool near Birkenhead.[4]

Price's were the first to introduce and produce "Cloth Oil" which was extensively used in machinery of the wool spinning industry. As gas engines began to be developed, they introduced, in 1877, "Price's Gas Engine Oil", which was still in use in the 1930s. For the petrol engine, they produced "Price's Motorine" in 1905 for Rolls Royce amongst others. In 1910 this product was improved to "Price's Motorine de Luxe".[5]

By 1900 it was the largest manufacturer of candles in the world. Price's supplied "edible candles" for Captain Scott's final expedition to the South Pole in 1910.

In 1909 new premises were purchased in Cape Town. Price's Candles Ltd bought the Burmeister Candle Factory in Cape Town. The premises were sold in 1923, and a new factory was opened in Observatory.

In 1919 the company was bought by Lever Brothers Ltd. In 1991, Shell, the then owners of the company sold it to a private buyer. The Battersea site is now closed and the company no longer manufactures in the United Kingdom.

In 2001 the Price's fell into administration. An Italian company, Cereria Sgarbi Sp.A., purchased the company before it was itself bought two years later by SER Wax Industry in the Summer of 2003. Production of Price's candles being established at its factory in Turin, Italy.

• Price's Candles website