United Africa Company
| Subsidiary of Unilever | |
| Industry | Import & Export Trading, Shipping, Palm Oil plantations |
| Founded | 1929 |
| Defunct | 1987 |
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
|
Area served
|
West & Central Africa |
|
Key people
|
Sir Robert Whaley Cohen, Lord Trenchard, Frank Samuel & Sir Arthur Smith |
| Parent | Unilever |
The United Africa Company (UAC) was a British company which principally traded in West Africa during the 20th century.
The United Africa Company was formed in 1929 as a result of the merger of The Niger Company, which had been effectively owned by Lever Brothers since 1920, and the African & Eastern Trade Corporation. In the early 1930s the United Africa Company was nearly reduced to bankruptcy and as a result it came under the control of Unilever which had just been formed. Unilever had only been created from the merger of Lever Brothers and the Dutch Margarine Union earlier on 3 March 1929. The United Africa Company continued as subsidiary of Unilever until 1987 when it was absorbed by the parent company.
William Hesketh Lever was a well known soap manufacturer and became involved in the West Africa trade to supply his company, primarily with palm oil.
In 1916 Lever took over the Manchester firm of H. Watson & Co., which had a fleet of eight vessels, with names derived from villages in Cheshire and Shropshire: Colemere, Delamere, Eskmere, Flaxmere, Linmere, Oakmere, Rabymere and Redesmere. This small fleet, whose tonnages ranged from 1,251 to 2,293, was formed into the Bromport Steamship Company Ltd. – named after Bromborough, a town on the Wirral Peninsula that, like Port Sunlight, was dominated by Lever-owned businesses. It sailed under a new blue house flag, marked with a white star, the letters BSCL and a central L for Lever.
In the two remaining years of the First World War the Bromport Line lost half of its ships (Colemere, Eskmere, Redesmere and Delamere) to German U-boats.
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