History
Bradford has experienced much change in our almost 150-year history, but our commitment to formulating and manufacturing innovative products remains central to our identity.
- Our company was founded in Rhode Island in 1876 by James Rogers and William Murgatroyd of Bradford, England.
- They named their plant Bradford Soap Works. Rhode Island was the center of the textile industry in the new world, just as Bradford, England, was the center of the textile industry in England.
- Our first product was flake soap for use in scouring wool.
- A few years later, another English immigrant opened a soap manufacturing plant in Rhode Island under the same name. Since Rogers and Murgatroyd had not registered the name Bradford Soap Works, they re-named and registered their company as The Original Bradford Soap Works.
- By the 1920s, ownership had succeeded to the McIver family. The company's manufacturing facility's location changed several times - but it was always next to one of the large rivers that flowed through Rhode Island.
- In 1931, Bradford moved to its present location in West Warwick, Rhode Island.
- From its founding in 1876 through the 1940s, Bradford was a manufacturer of industrial grade soap for the textile and paper-making industries.
- Bradford's ownership and leadership changed. Allen Howland joined the company in 1946; he was the first member of the Howland family to work at Bradford. In the mid-1950s, Allen became Bradford's COO; by the late 1960s, the Howland family owned a majority of the company's stock.
- In the 1950s, we expanded our product line to include value-added finishing products for sale to the same customers who bought our soap. For example, flame retardant treatments for textiles and polyethylene emulsions providing a glossy finish for paper stock.
- In Rome, New York, Bradford acquired the Rome Soap Company to expand the customer base for its industrial product line. Likewise, Bradford purchased Mohawk Chemicals Ltd. in Quebec to serve the Canadian market. Bradford also had licensing arrangements with Hickson & Welch in England and Campbell Bros. Ltd in Australia.
- Things changed in the 1960s. With the textile industry moving south - and eventually offshore, and with the paper-making industry moving to the Pacific Northwest, Bradford's customer base was slowly but surely leaving New England. For several years the company operated Bradford Southern Chemical Company in North Carolina to serve textile customers who had moved south.
- A five-story granite mill building can't move, so Bradford developed a new business model. The company upgraded its soap making operation to produce a fine quality toilet soap base and added a down-stream bar soap processing capability.
- During the 1970s, Bradford greatly diversified its bar soap customer base. No longer just a cleansing product, bar soap had become a treatment and aromatherapy product as well as home décor and a gift. Whereas bar soap was once purchased exclusively at grocery and drug stores, now it was sold in a wide variety of retail settings.
- As we changed our focus from industrial products to consumer products, we continued to augment the company's growth potential via acquisitions. These included Lightfoot Soap Company and Glastonbury Toiletries.
- In 1978, Bradford's current Executive Chairman, John Howland, joined the company. John served in Vietnam, received his MBA from Columbia University, and was an Institutional Investor magazine top-rated analyst on Wall Street.
- In 1993, Bradford Soap Works LTD. opened a purpose-built manufacturing facility in Chester, England to access the European market. Although the UK operation achieved its early business goals, it was sold in 2005 to pursue other strategic opportunities.
- In October 2003, we acquired our major bar soap competitor, The Hewitt Soap Company. This acquisition added a number of significant customers and a state-of-the-art production facility in Columbus, Indiana.
- In November 2004, we acquired Jean Charles Mexicali. This acquisition added shower poufs to our product line. It also expanded our operating platform to include a Mexican Maquiladora capable of manufacturing and assembling a broad range of products. The facility was sold in 2016 to remove Bradford from its daily management, but we continue to manufacture the pouf sponges there.
- In June 2009, we acquired Stahl Soap Corporation. This acquisition integrated smoothly into our Rhode Island operations, thereby delivering significant economic benefits to all our customers.
- In 2013, Bradford recognized that the bar format could be used for a broad range of products, including cleansing, shave, hair care, and more. We started to expand our portfolio of products to address this emerging trend of multi-function products with less water and less packaging.
- The pouf sponge business expanded to include licensed products in 2016.
- In 2017, Bradford recognized that consumers were looking for products with clean ingredient lists, less packaging, and less water. Over the next few years, we expanded our product offerings to include moisturizers, natural deodorants, shave products, fragrance and shampoos in solid formats containing little or no water.
- Bradford also doubled down on our sustainable sourcing initiatives with a commitment to offering traceable, sustainable ingredients.
- In 2023, Bradford was acquired by Gemspring Capital, with the goal of growing Bradford's product and service offerings.