PRICE'S PATENT CANDLE CO of 1847 started life as Edward Price & Co in 1830 and is still trading today albeit under Italian ownership. The company had production facilities at London, Liverpool and Manchester. The main business of candle making is a long story but central to this is oil which, amongst other locations, was discovered in Burma in 1854.
Price's imported large quantities of oil into the UK, and from a distillation process was able to produce four separate products - benzene used as a cleaning product; kerosene for lamp oil; paraffin wax for candles; and lastly a heavy waste oil for which no use had at that time been found. Large exports were made to the USA of kerosene but that came to an end when oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859.
With stockpiles of bulk oil Price's experimented with the heavy waste oil and produced its first lubrication oils for use with
Price's early motor oil tins were very decorative and carried the "Clipper Ship" logo
steam engines and other machinery. By 1930 the company had produced many lubricating oils including "Motorine" which was the approved oil for Rolls Royce cars.
In 1919 Price's Patent Candle Company Ltd was taken over by Lever Brothers Ltd and three years later a new company was formed to take over the business - Candles Ltd, which was jointly owned by Lever Bros, British Petroleum, Burmah Oil and Shell. Lever Brothers withdrew from Candles Ltd in 1936 but the company continued with its oil lubricant production at Battersea in London. In 1951 Price's produced the first multigrade oil which was branded "Price's Energol" the brand was a huge success but by 1954 B.P. had moved all of the company's oil production to their Grangemouth refinery and re branded Price's Energol to "B.P. Energol". By 1982 B.P. and Burmah Oil had pulled out leaving Shell as the sole owner. Shell finally sold the business in 1991.
Price's logo was derived from the company's use of Clipper ships
The interesting trade mark of the company of a fully rigged Clipper Ship appeared on all of the company's early products and advertising. This first appeared in the 1870's and was a recognition of the importance that this means of transport had had for the fortunes of the company in its importation of oil.
The first advertisement below of 1898 shows a range of oil products in production by the company and by the time of the second advert of 1904 they were able to make the claim of producing a winning oil. The last advertisement below, dated 1926, shows the company's long standing relationship with Rolls Royce as a supplier to them of their Motor Oil products.
