Occasionally, when I’m searching for photos using the baffling search engine at Vancouver Archives, I stumble across an interesting building or streetscape that I’ve never seen before. Often the information with the photos is quite detailed, but in the above photo all I had was a photo of the Royal Crown Soap Company building and the date ca.1905.
As its name implies, the Royal Crown Soap Company was a Canadian company that specialized in soap with factories in Vancouver and Winnipeg.
The company first appears in the City Directories in 1900 at 308 Harris Street—what East Georgia was called prior to 1915—the year the first Georgia viaduct was completed. The company is managed by Frederick T. Schooley, and he stays at the helm for the next 28 years.
Looking at ads from the ‘20s, Royal Crown was quite a prolific print advertiser, regularly engaging in coupon campaigns.
The company—which changes to the Royal Crown Soap Company and finally to Lever Bros Soap Manufacturers in 1942—started to see declining sales of soap in the 1940s. The city directory listing for 1949 is vacant, and the factory was demolished in the 1950s.
A look at Google maps shows the building would have been where the park is at Gore and East Georgia. Today, the only thing left of the Royal Crown Soap Company, is a ghost sign on the side of the London Pub at East Georgia and Main.
Top photo: The Royal Crown Soap Company, ca.1905. Photo courtesy CVA 312.27
With a ton of thanks to Lani Russwurm who discovered the ghost sign and put it on his blog PastTense Vancouver. And, then was kind enough to pop around and check if it was still there and snap this photo.
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
6 comments on “The Royal Crown Soap Company”
Eve, this story takes the cake, of soap that is. I can imagine Canadians collecting the junk pictured in the ads and some of it must still be around.
On another level it’s fascinating how Royal Crown could not escape the fate of companies that do fine and then for some reason die. It’s namesake Royal Crown Cola is still hanging on but I expect the same is in store for it.
Wonder if Royal Crown sold its soap unit to Lever Brothers in 1942?
English-based Lever Brothers merged with a Dutch margarine concern called Margarine Unie in 1930. The combined operation became Unilever, arguably the world’s first multinational. Lever Brothers Limited continued as a Canadian subsidiary.
According to Wikipedia, that subsidiary was sold to a private concern in 2008. Not the most propititious year for financially-engineered deals. Maybe that’s why the renamed Kobex entity wound up going broke.
I have a large advertising piece from the late 1800s. The company was founded then. Below is a link to their first trademark and it was taken over by Lever.
I have a letter dated April 21, 1916 from my great uncle. He was 15 years old and beginning his job as a sea merchant on the schooner Margaret Haney docked in Vancouver. In his letter to his family on Salt Spring Island he writes
‘I went around to the Royal Crown Soapworks but they had closed and so I am posting the coupons back for Basil (brother) to get his two books with. ‘
I enjoyed reading about RCS and the coupons. It brings his story to life even more. Thank you
That make me so happy to hear! Thanks for dropping by.
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