Antoon Jurgens

Antoon Jurgens was a Dutch merchant and industrialist, born in Oss, The Netherlands in 1805, and died there in 1880. He founded a butter company that grew to be one of the largest butter and margarine companies in Europe. His company was instrumental in the formation of Margarine Unie which, in 1930, merged with Lever Brothers to form Unilever.

He was the son of Wilhelmus Jurgens and Henrica van Valkenburg. On 19 May 1832 Jurgens married Johanna Lemmens: then had ten children.

From 1844 to 1850 Jurgens was a member of the Council of Oss.

Jurgens was educated to be a merchant, and in 1820 became a butter merchant in Oss, the Netherlands. The demand for butter increased because of the Belgian Revolt, which caused a large number of soldiers to be stationed in that part Noord-Brabant of the Netherlands. After his father's death in 1836, he and his brothers continued the family company.

In a notary document of 25 April 1867, he and his sons Jan, Hendrikus, and Arnoldus, formed a limited company under the name Antoon Jurgens, to actively pursue wholesale trade in butter, and to create a dairy farm. Hendrikus was their accountant. They bought butter in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. The butter was brought to Oss, where it was treated, packed and shipped. In May 1871, through the butter industry Jurgens met Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, a Frenchman, who had invented margarine. Mege-Mouries had licensed his patent to business in other countries but not to anyone in the Netherlands, as the Netherlands did not have a patent law until 1910. Jurgens paid for a demonstration of Mege-Mouries' process. Later that year Jurgens started experimental production of margarine to which initially real butter was added.

Around 1875 Jurgens wound down his activities in the company. As a Roman Catholic he bequeathed, in 1876, a head altar to the Great Church of Oss, the Netherlands.

The company became one of the largest butter and margarine business in Europe. It was one of the two companies whose merger, in 1927, sparked the formation of Margarine Unie, which three years later, in 1930, joined Lever Brothers to create Unilever.

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