Antoon Jurgens was a Dutch merchant and industrialist, born in Oss, The Netherlands in 1805, and died there in 1880.
Background
He was the son of Wilhelmus Jurgens and Henrica van Valkenburg. On 19 May 1832 Jurgens married Johanna Lemmens, who was the daughter of the Lord Mayor of Beugen and Rijkevoort, Arnoldus Ambrosius Lemmens and his wife Dorothea van de Voordt, whose family also produced several Lord Mayors of Beugen en Rijkevoort.
Education
Jurgens was educated to be a merchant, and in 1820 became a butter merchant in Oss, the Netherlands.
Career
He founded a butter company that grew to be one of the largest butter and margarine companies in Europe. His company was instrumental in the formation of Margarine Unie which, in 1930, merged with Lever Brothers to form Unilever. The demand for butter increased because of the Belgian Revolt, which caused a large number of soldiers to be stationed in that part Noord-Brabant of the Netherlands.
Hendrikus was their accountants
They bought butter in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. The butter was brought to Oss, where it was treated, packed and shipped.
They exported to England, France, Belgium, and Germany. By the end of the 1860s the company had become one of the largest butter merchants in Europe, and Jurgens was one of the richest people in the Netherlands.
In May 1871, through the butter industry Jurgens met Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, a Frenchman, who had invented margarine.
Mege-Mouries had licensed his patent to business in other countries but not to anyone in the Netherlands, as the Netherlands did not have a patent law until 1910. Jurgens paid for a demonstration of Mege-Mouries" process. Later that year Jurgens started experimental production of margarine to which initially real butter was added.
Over time the butter was totally replaced by much cheaper vegetable oils.
Around 1875 Jurgens wound down his activities in the company. As a Roman Catholic he bequeathed, in 1876, a head altar to the Great Church of Oss, the Netherlands.
The company became one of the largest butter and margarine business in Europe. lieutenant was one of the two companies whose merger, in 1927, sparked the formation of Margarine Unie, which three years later, in 1930, joined Lever Brothers to create Unilever.
Membership
From 1844 to 1850 Jurgens was a member of the Council of Oss.