Created by William Valentine Wright in 1860, Wright's Coal Tar Soap was a popular brand of antiseptic soap designed to thoroughly cleanse the skin. It was 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 the treatment of skin diseases. However, Wright’s Traditional Soap contains no coal tar, this having been replaced by tea tree oil for its antibacterial properties.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 south east 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 that of 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 originally named Sapo Carbonis Detergens, which remains a registered trademark. 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 Charles Umney (1843–1909) was taken into the partnership in 1876 when Mr Sellers retired, and the company's name changed to Wright, Layman & Umney "Wholesale and export druggists, manufacturers of pharmaceutical and chemical preparations, distillers of essential oils, manufacturers and proprietors of Wright’s Coal Tar Soap and other coal tar specialities". It soon became necessary for the company to lease adjoining premises, until in quick succession numbers 44, 46, and 48 were added to the original warehouse at Southwark Street. 1877: Wright dies Wright met an 'untimely death' in Dundee in September 1877: "he caught a cold in the face, which developed into erysipelas, the inflammation extending to the brain, he succumbed with great suddenness at the age of