William Colgate

William Colgate (January 25, 1783 – March 25, 1857) was an English-American soap industrialist who founded in 1806 what became the Colgate-Palmolive company. Early life William Colgate was born in Hollingbourne, Kent, England, on January 25, 1783. He was the son of Robert Colgate and his wife Sarah (née Bowles). The family moved to a farm near Shoreham when William was six years old. Robert Colgate (1758–1826) was an 18th-century English farmer, politician and sympathiser with the American War of Independence and French Revolution, whose republican ideals impelled him to leave their farm in Shoreham, Kent, in March 1798 and emigrate to Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States of America, after which the family settled on a farm in Harford County, Maryland. Colgate formed a partnership with Ralph Maher to manufacture soap and candles, and William helped the two men, but the partnership dissolved after two years. The family later settled in Delaware County, New York. Career William Colgate went to New York City in 1804. He there obtained employment as an apprentice in a soap-boiler. He closely watched the methods practiced by his employer, noting what seemed to him to be mismanagement, and learned useful lessons for his own guidance. At the close of his apprenticeship he was enabled, by correspondence with dealers in other cities, to establish himself in the business with some assurance of success.