Reckitt and Sons
| Industry | Household products |
|---|---|
| Predecessor | Isaac Reckitt and Sons |
| Successor | Reckitt & Colman |
| Founded | 1840, registered 1879 |
| Founder | Isaac Reckitt |
| Headquarters | Kingston upon Hull |
| Products | Starch, black lead, household polish, laundry blue |
Reckitt and Sons was a leading British manufacturer of household products, focusing on starch, black lead, laundry blue, and household polish, and based in Kingston upon Hull.
Isaac Reckitt began business in Hull in 1840, and his business became a private company "Isaac Reckitt and Sons" in 1879, and a public company in 1888. The company expanded through the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It merged with a major competitor in the starch market J. & J. Colman in 1938 to form Reckitt & Colman
Colmans' food business was subsequently divested and an merger made with Benckiser to form Reckitt Benckiser in 1999.
As of 2014[update] the company's original site at Dansom Lane, Hull, is still used for manufacturing.
In 1818 Isaac Reckitt and his brother Thomas established a milling business in Boston, Lincolnshire with capital of £1,300 (equivalent to £860,000 in 2015), building Maud Foster Mill (1819), and later expanding their business into cement manufacture (1823) and bone milling (1828). Isaac quit the partnership in 1833 establishing himself as a corn factor in Nottingham; this business failed and in 1840 he moved to Kingston upon Hull, and rented the starch works (b.1835) of Charles Middleton, in Dansom Lane.
The business made soluble starch from both farina and sago; by 1847 the business was profitable generating an excess of £1,000 (equivalent to £80,000 in 2015). In the late 1840s the business began promoting itself through extensive use of advertising, though initial positive effects were limited. In the 1850s the business began manufacturing laundry blue using ultramarine, and then black lead; the two products together with starch, plus their derivatives became the mainstay of the business. In 1857 the company began manufacturing biscuits. The developments of the 1850s led to extension of the works at Dansom Lane, and a new biscuit factory was built 1861, and a rice starch plant in 1864.
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