Handmade Soap Boronia

In 1632 Charles I granted letters patent to the Society of Soapmakers of Westminster, granting them a 14-year monopoly of certain types of soap in return for payment of £4 per ton.
Bitter struggles followed and decrees of the Star Chamber resulted in the destruction of many soap pans outside the monopoly producers' locations. By 1636, the Star Chamber had decreed that there should be no soap manufacture outside a one-mile limit of London and Bristol.

All soap pans were required to be fitted with a padlock, of which the key was held by the exciseman. This official was required to be in attendance at each soap boiling, of which 12 hours' notice was required to be given. It was eventually Gladstone, as Chancellor of the Exchequer who, in a growing tide of Victorian concern about cleanliness, abandoned the soap duty in 1852, at an annual loss of £1,126,000 in tax revenue.

Glycerin was first observed by the Swedish chemist Scheele in 1779, who called it "the sweet principle of fat". Michel Eugene Chevreul showed that oils and fats are glycerides, and that boiling with caustic soda formed the salts of fatty acids, or soaps, liberating the glycerin, for which he obtained a manufacturing patent in 1811. This knowledge paved the way for the great expansion of soap manufacture later in the century, for which more assured sources of alkali were essential.

The first significant process for the large scale manufacture of alkali was invented by the French chemist Nicholas Leblanc.

The next major development in alkali production was due to the American chemist Hamilton Young Castner.  An Austrian chemist, Carl Kellner, had patented a similar, though less effective, process in 1892. In order to avoid legal battles an agreement was reached between Castner and Kellner. The Castner-Kellner Alkali Company was formed in 1895 and soon commenced the construction of new plant on a 46-acre site at Weston Point, Runcorn, near to the Salt Union works. The Salt Union agreed to provide up to 10,000 gallons of brine per day to enable the Castner-Kellner plant to produce 6,300 tons of pure caustic soda and 13,500 tons of bleaching powder per year.