Created by William Valentine Wright in 1860, Wright's Coal Tar Soap is a British brand of antiseptic soap designed to cleanse the skin thoroughly. It is an orange colour.
For over 150 years, Wright's Coal Tar Soap was a popular brand of household soap; its successor, Wright's Traditional Soap, can still be bought in supermarkets and from chemists worldwide. The original product was developed by William Valentine Wright in 1860 from "liquor carbonis detergens", the liquid by-product of the distillation of coal to make coke; the liquid was made into an antiseptic soap for treating skin diseases. However, Wright's Traditional Soap contains no coal tar, which has been replaced by tea tree oil for its antibacterial properties.
History
Wright, Sellers & Layman
William Valentine Wright, born in 1826 in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, was a wholesale druggist and chemist who had a small business, W.V. Wright & Co. at 11 Old Fish Street Hill, Doctors' Commons, London. Now non-existent, Old Fish Street Hill southeast of St Paul's Cathedral was the 14th-century fish market before Billingsgate (it is not the present-day Fish Street Hill by the Monument). Wright's business can be traced back to James Curtis & Co., a wholesale druggist at these premises since 1795.
Wright developed a reputation with his recipe for non-alcoholic communion wine.
W.V. Wright & Co.'s coal-tar soap was first sold in 1860. It was initially named Sapo Carbonis Detergens, a registered trademark.
By 1875 Wright had taken John Sellers and Frederick Noel Layman (1841–1910) into partnership; in 1876 John Sellers retired. In 1867, Wright moved his firm, Wright, Sellers & Layman, to small (one-third acre) premises at 50 Southwark Street, Southwark, London. This area of London was already renowned for its glue factories and tanneries.
Wright, Layman & Umney
When Sellers retired, Charles Umney (1843–1916) joined the partnership in 1876.