A heritage site rich in history

The Soap Factory sits on the site of the former Administrative Offices Building of Kitchen & Sons Pty Ltd. Said to combine ‘loftiness, dignity and stability’, the offices were built on the eastern side of Ingles
Street on Kitchen & Sons Pty Ltd 117-acre premises in Port Melbourne around 1920.

Incorporated in 1883, Kitchen & Sons has its origins in the mid-1850s, when John Kitchen, a grocer and candle-maker from Reading, England, arrived in Melbourne with his three young sons, John Ambrose, Phillip and Theophilus, to begin a new life. The family rented a room in Emerald Hill (now South Melbourne), bought some cheap candle frames, and began making tallow candles in the backyard. The business relocated to Port Melbourne, and the enterprising family added soap, glycerine, washing blue, soda crystals and baking powder to their repertoire. Velvet Soap and Electrine Candles were two of their most popular products.

Within thirty years John and his sons were Australia’s chief manufacturers of candles and soap. The firm employing 300 workers in Melbourne by the early 1880s, and more than 1000 around Australia by the time it merged with British firm Lever Bros in 1914.