James Darcy Lever was the co-founder, with his brother William Hesketh Lever, of Lever Brothers

Lever Brothers

Lever Brothers was a British manufacturer founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James Darcy Lever . The brothers had invested in and promoted a new soap making process invented by chemist William Hough Watson, it was a huge success...

, the company that became Unilever

Unilever

Unilever is a British-Dutch multinational corporation that owns many of the world's consumer product brands in foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products....

. However, due to illness, he played little part in running the business.

He was born in Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

, the son of James Lever and Eliza Hesketh of Wood Street. The brothers established a business with the chemist William Hough Watson, inventor of a new soap-making process, in Warrington

Warrington

Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...

 and then at Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight is a model village, suburb and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England. It is located between Lower Bebington and New Ferry, on the Wirral Peninsula. Between 1894 and 1974 it formed part of Bebington urban district within the county of Cheshire...

 on the Wirral

Wirral Peninsula

Wirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded by three bodies of water: to the west by the River Dee, forming a boundary with Wales, to the east by the River Mersey and to the north by the Irish Sea. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the...

.

James Lever married Annie Kershaw on 26 April 1882 and, with other family members moved to Thornton Hough

Thornton Hough

Thornton Hough is a village on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside, England, of pre-Conquest origins and historically a part of Cheshire. The village grew during the ownership of Joseph Hirst into a small model village and was later acquired by William Lever...

, 4 miles (6.4 km) from Port Sunlight, after 1884. James Lever never took a major part in running the business. He fell ill in 1895, probably as a result of diabetes, and resigned his directorship two years later. A biography by Adam Macqueen suggests his symptoms, before the discovery of insulin

Insulin

Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle....

, may have been mistaken for mental instability.

He died at Thornton Hough in 1910. A memorial window designed by H.Gustave Hiller of Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

was installed in the north transept at All Saints Church, Thornton Hough. The window was a gift from his widow and niece, Mary Ethel Dean, in 1912.