William James (Royal Navy officer, born 1881) sat as a subject for several paintings by his grandfather, Millais. The most well-known of these is "Bubbles", in which the five-year-old William is shown gazing enraptured at a bubble he has just blown. When the painting was used in an advertisement for Pears soap, it became famous. The image dogged James throughout his life, and he was regularly nicknamed "Bubbles". James pursued a career in the Royal Navy, rising to hold a number of important positions. Following early service on the training ship HMS "Britannia", he was confirmed in the rank of sub-lieutenant on 15 April 1901. He was
Pears (soap) Pears (soap) Pears transparent soap is a brand of soap first produced and sold in 1807 by Andrew Pears at a factory just off Oxford Street in London, England. It was the world's first mass-market translucent soap. Under the stewardship of Thomas J. Barratt, A. & F. Pears initiated a number of innovations in sales and marketing. A. & F. Pears was acquired by Lever Brothers, now Unilever, in 1917 and products under the Pears brand are currently sold in India, Sri Lanka and Nigeria. Andrew Pears, the son of a farmer, was born about 1770 in Cornwall and moved