Price's
Candles - (en)
Price's Candles is a United Kingdom manufacturer and retailer of
candles, founded in 1830. Its full name is Price's Patent Candles Ltd.
The fim is headquartered in Bedford and holds the Royal Warrant for
the supply of candles.
Price's Candles was founded by George Wilson in 1830, and originally
consisted of a candle factory at Vauxhall, London and a crushing mill
upstream at Battersea, York Road (later moved to Liverpool). Palm
trees from West Africa were used for their palm oil, and George Wilson
used sulphuric acid to remove the brown colour. There was limited
dockside facilities at Battersea so the factory was moved to
Liverpool. In 1840 there were 84 staff, and by 1855, 2,300. William's
son James Wilson 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 an evangelical Christian and by providing
free breakfasts and suppers and free baths he was a pioneer in workers'
welfare. The famous novelists Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Beecher
Stowe wrote enthusiastically about these reforms. By 1900 it was the
largest manufacturer of candles in the world.
There were 130 different types or sizes of candle and 60 different
permutations of material.
Price's supplied "edible candles" for Captain Scott's final
expedition to the South Pole. In 1919 the company was bought by Lever
Brothers Ltd. In 1991, Shell, the eventual owners of the company, sold
it back to a private buyer. It is now the largest candle manufacturer
in the UK. The Battersea site is now a candle retail outlet. For the
technological point of view they are important in the History of
candle making.
