The Analysis of the Port Sunlight

The Analysis of the Port Sunlight

In the context of the Victorian era, in which it was conceived, the

creation of Port Sunlight Village by William Hesketh Lever was

unparalleled. The tumultuous changes wreaked by the Industrial

Revolution still had not been fully embraced even as late as the early

twentieth century.

The combination of a content, healthy and efficient workforce was a

vision held by some philosophers and luminaries of the time but Lever

was one of the first entrepreneurs to realise such a dream. From his

middle-class upbringing in Bolton, Lancashire to his ambitious trips

around the world, Lever employed lessons learned to good effect in

housing and employing the workforce of his soap business.

Lever, like many Victorians, wanted his workers to share in his wealth

which they had helped create. The squalor of the slums in which most

workers lived appalled him and his guiding philosophy was that all men

could improve themselves given a fair chance, in decent conditions.

Tired of paying heavy port dues for his exports and rent for his

factory buildings, he decided to buy a site and build his own factory,

with port access and decent housing for his workers at reasonable

rents. He would provide them with schools, library, institutes and

public buildings which they could use to improve themselves as he had

done. In return, they were to prove themselves worthy of all this by

following a life of sobriety, thrift and the desire for

self-improvement. So was founded Port Sunlight, a model village "neat

and cheerful" which fulfilled Lever's desire to share his profits with

his workers and combined with his interests in hous...

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...ater, the

six-hour day and direct bank credit arrangements for employees' wages.

The Architecture

The public buildings and housing are the work of more than 30

architects employed by William Lever. In less than one square mile,

under his overall direction they managed to create a garden village

with a sense of space and beauty hitherto only dreamed of. The

vernacular idiom as interpreted by Nesfield and Shaw (they called it 'Old

English') was employed throughout together with Victorian

interpretations of historical styles. Building materials used ranged

from the Ruabon red brick to the softer materials typical of the Arts

& Crafts movement in it's Edwardian phase. Gothic windows, pargetting

(ornamental plasterwork), half-timbering and leaded glazing are

commonplace in architecture that integrates yet surprises.